Category Archives: 2017 Hackaday Prize

Hackaday Prize Entry: An Internet Doorbell

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The Internet of Things will kill us all and is the worst idea anyone has ever had. However, just because something could be labeled an ‘Internet of Things thing’ doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. The Hackaday Prize’s Internet of Useful Things challenge was all about finding the Internet of Useful things, and one of these projects is so simple yet so elegant, we’re surprised no one has thought of it yet.

[David]’s entry to the Hackaday Prize is effectively an Internet of Things doorbell. You might think an IoT doorbell would just consist of a device sending push notifications …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: DIY 6-Axis Micro Manipulator

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[David Brown]’s entry for The Hackaday Prize is a design for a tool that normally exists only as an expensive piece of industrial equipment; out of the reach of normal experimenters, in other words. That tool is a 6-axis micro manipulator and is essentially a small robotic actuator that is capable of very small, very precise movements. It uses 3D printed parts and low-cost components.

The manipulator consists of six identical actuators, each consisting of a single piece of SLS 3D printed nylon with a custom PCB to control a motor and read positional feedback. The motor moves the central …read more

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Best Product Entry: Telescope Control With RDuinoScope

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The Hackaday Prize is more than just giving tens of thousands of dollars to hardware hackers. It’s also about funding the next batch of Open Source hardware products. Alongside The Hackaday Prize — the contest where we’re funding hardware that will change the world, — we’re also giving away $30,000 to the project that will best become a product. It’s almost like we’re funding hardware startups here.

[Dessislav Gouzgounov] wanted to build a small piece of hardware — a GoTo for his telescope. This handheld controller would allow him to use software to align the telescope with whatever celestial …read more

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Best Product Entry: A HSDK for Ultrasound Imaging

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As an entry into this year’s Best Product portion of the Hackaday Prize, [kelu124] is developing a hardware and software development kit for ultrasound imaging.

Ultrasound is one of the primary tools used in modern diagnostic medicine. Head to the doctor with abdominal pain, and you can bet you’ll be seeing the business end of an ultrasound system. While Ultrasound systems have gotten cheaper, they aren’t something everyone has in the home yet.  [kelu124] is working to change that by building a hardware and software development kit which can be used to explore ultrasound systems. This isn’t [kleu124’s] first rodeo. …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: DIY DLP

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The 3D printing revolution is upon us and the technologies associated with these machines is evolving every day. Stereolithography or SLA printers are becoming the go-to printer for high-resolution prints that just can’t be fabricated on a filament-based machine. ADAM DLP 3D printer project is [adambrx]’s entry into the Hackaday Prize and the first step in his quest for higher quality prints on a DIY budget.

[adambrx]’s current iteration employs a Raspberry Pi 3 and a UV DLP Projector, all enclosed in a custom frame assembly. The logs show the evolution of the printer from an Acer DLP to the …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Gaming Done Tiny with Keymu

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The world’s tiniest Game Boy Color, introduced at the 2016 Hackaday SuperConference, is a work of art. This microscopic game console inspired [c.invent] to create how own gaming handheld. His Keymu project on hackaday.io describes an open source, keychain-sized gaming handheld that its builder claims is really the world’s tiniest. How did he make it smaller? It’s a miniature Game Boy Advance SP, and it folds up in a handy clamshell case.

While he’s a Pi fan, [c.invent] felt the Pi Zero was too big and clunky for what he had in mind–a keychain-sized handheld. Only the Intel Edison was …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: A Braille Keypad For SmartPhone

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A few things stand out about [Vijay]’s braille keypad for smartphones. One is how ergonomic the plans for the final result are, sitting on the back of the smartphone such that you hold the phone much as you often normally would. Another is that it plugs in just like any other USB keyboard. And the last should make any vi user smile — you don’t have to move your fingers to type. You just press combinations of buttons already under your fingers.

It consists of a custom circuit board with an AtMega32U4, a 16 MHz oscillator, a Micro-USB connector and …read more

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Will it Sell?

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Many of us develop things for one of two purposes: to hack something cool, or to sell something cool. When hacking something cool, your target market is yourself, and you already know you’ve made the sale. If your goal is to sell the thing you are making, then a lot more thought and effort is required. You could develop the coolest product in the world, but if your target market is too small, your price is too high, your lead time is too long, or any of a dozen other factors is not quite right, you’ll be spending a lot …read more

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Best Product Entry: Pocket Thermal Camera

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One of the entries in the Hackaday Prize Best Product competition is [x-labz]’s pocket thermal imager. It’s more than a prototype, it’s a design conceived to get out into the world and be used by many. Best Product entries are open until July 24th, and with a $30,000 cash prize on the line let’s take a look at some of the things that elevate a project to product status.

Thanks to recent advances in the state of thermal image sensors, a tool that gives you Predator vision is almost a necessity on the modern workbench. The pocket thermal imager will …read more

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Hackaday Prize Entry: A Tiva Shaped Like an Arduino

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Texas Instruments’ Tiva C LaunchPad showcases TI’s ARM Cortex-M4F, a 32-bit, 80Mhz microcontroller based on the TM4C123GH6PM. The Tiva series of LaunchPads serve as TI’s equivalent of the Arduino Uno, and hovers at about the same price point, except with more processing power and a sane geometry for the GPIO pins.

The Tiva’s processor runs five times faster than standard ATMega328P, and it sports 40 multipurpose GPIO pins and multiple serial ports. Just like the Arduino has shields, the Tiva has Booster Packs, and TI offers a decent number of options—but nothing like the Arduino’s ecosystem.

[Jacob]’s Arduino-Tiva project, an …read more

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