Author Archives: Mike Szczys

Strandbeest Not Fooling Anyone — We See Right Through It

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This Strandbeest is ready for the security line at a security-conscious high school. Like see-though backpacks, its clear polycarbonate parts let you see everything that goes into the quirky locomotion mechanism. Despite having multiple legs, if you analyze the movement of a Strandbeest it actually moves like a wheel.

For us, it’s the narrated fabrication video found below that makes this build really interesting. Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] has been building different versions of [Theo Jansen’s] Strandbeest for years now. Strandmaus was a small walker controlled by a tiny quadcopter, and MountainBeest was a huge (and heavy) undertaking. Both were …read more

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Strandbeest Not Fooling Anyone — We See Right Through It

Posted on by

This Strandbeest is ready for the security line at a security-conscious high school. Like see-though backpacks, its clear polycarbonate parts let you see everything that goes into the quirky locomotion mechanism. Despite having multiple legs, if you analyze the movement of a Strandbeest it actually moves like a wheel.

For us, it’s the narrated fabrication video found below that makes this build really interesting. Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] has been building different versions of [Theo Jansen’s] Strandbeest for years now. Strandmaus was a small walker controlled by a tiny quadcopter, and MountainBeest was a huge (and heavy) undertaking. Both were …read more

Continue reading Strandbeest Not Fooling Anyone — We See Right Through It→

Hardware Tribes Growing Up Around Artisanal Electronics

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Consumer electronics are design beasts that must serve many masters. There’s a price point for the product itself, a ceiling for the feature set (lest it not be ‘user friendly’), and to take the risk of actually manufacturing something there needs to be proof of the market. A lot of great things make it through this process, but some really unique and special gear goes completely around it.

So is the story of this AND!XOR hardware badge being built for DEF CON 25. This is not the official conference badge, but the latest in a growing trend of hardware/firmware engineers …read more

Continue reading Hardware Tribes Growing Up Around Artisanal Electronics→

Hardware Tribes Growing Up Around Artisanal Electronics

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Consumer electronics are design beasts that must serve many masters. There’s a price point for the product itself, a ceiling for the feature set (lest it not be ‘user friendly’), and to take the risk of actually manufacturing something there needs to be proof of the market. A lot of great things make it through this process, but some really unique and special gear goes completely around it.

So is the story of this AND!XOR hardware badge being built for DEF CON 25. This is not the official conference badge, but the latest in a growing trend of hardware/firmware engineers …read more

Continue reading Hardware Tribes Growing Up Around Artisanal Electronics→

Laser Cutting a 3D Printer

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The concept of self-replicating 3D printers is a really powerful one. But in practice, there are issues with the availability and quality of the 3D-printed parts. [Noyan] is taking a different approach by boostrapping a 3D printer with laser-cut parts. There are zero 3D-printed parts in this project. [Noyan] is using acrylic for the frame and the connecting mechanisms that go into the machine.

The printer design chosen for the project is the Prusa i3. We have certainly seen custom builds of this popular design before using laser-cut plywood for the frame. Still, these builds use 3D-printed parts for some …read more

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Hackaday Unconference this Saturday (in Triplicate)

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This Saturday we’re hosting the Hackaday Unconference — three live events in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco that are going to jumpstart the idea engines and enthusiasm of everyone who attends. We can’t even tell you what the Unconference is about; it’s the people who participate that make the schedule and guide the discussion. Everyone there will be ready to give a talk of at least eight minutes on something that excites them right now. As the day goes on, ideas will feed off of each other and people will give talks and lead discussions they hadn’t even thought …read more

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Q Has Nothing on Naomi Wu

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We’re not so much fans of James Bond as we are of Q, the hacker who supplies him with such wonderful things. There is a challenger to Q’s crown, [Naomi Wu] — code name [SexyCyborg] — built an epic gadget called the Pi Palette which hides a Linux laptop inside of a cosmetics case.

You can see the covert mode of the Pi Palette below. It resembles a clamshell cosmetics case with the makeup and applicator in the base and a mirror on the underside of the flip-up lid. The mirror hides an LCD screen in the portrait orientation, as …read more

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Closer Look at Everyone’s Favorite Blinky

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Admit it, you love looking at silicon die shots, especially when you have help walking through the functionality of all the different sections. This one’s really easy for a couple of reasons. [electronupdate] pointed his microscope at the die on a WS2812.

The WS2812 is an addressible RGB LED that is often called a Neopixel (a brand name assigned to it by Adafruit). The part is packaged in a 5×5 mm housing with a clear window on the front. This lets you easily see the diodes as they are illuminated, but also makes it easy to get a look at …read more

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Friday Hack Chat: Mechanical Manufacturing

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Join [Sylvia Wu], a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Fictiv, for this week’s Hack Chat. [Sylvia’s] work at Fictiv gives her a unique viewpoint for modern manufacturing. The company connects engineers with rapid manufacturing by taking in a design and routing it to a shop that has the tools and time to fabricate the part quickly. This means seeing the same silly mistakes over and over again, but also catching the coolest new tricks as they pass by. She also spends time tearing apart consumer products to see how they have been manufactured, adding to their arsenal of available processes, both …read more

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Los Angeles Hackaday Unconference Happening on 3/18

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Reserve your spot at the Los Angeles Hackaday Unconference on Saturday, March 18th. The Hackaday community is huge in LA and this event will fill up, so don’t delay.

The Unconference is a unique opportunity to decide the course of the day as it happens. Everyone who attends should be ready to stand and deliver at least eight minutes on a topic they find exciting right now. The energy this creates is the key to a level of involvement that can’t be matched at traditional conferences that have a divide between those presenting and those attending.

LA Joins Chicago and

…read more

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