Category Archives: 2018 Hackaday Prize

A Mini-ITX PDP-11

Posted on by

The PDP-11 is perhaps the most important computer in history. This was the king of all minicomputers, and once you get past the amazing front panels of the 11/20, 11/40, and 11/70, you’ll find PDP-11s everywhere. Heathkit sold one. It was the smallest computer that could run Unix. There were desktop versions sold as DEC Professionals. I have been told Ticketmaster — the entire backend of all event ticket sales in the United States — still runs on PDP-11s.

One of the interesting bits of the PDP-11 is the miniaturization that happened over the course of its development. Over time, …read more

Continue reading A Mini-ITX PDP-11→

Video Quick-Bit: Numitrons and Infinite Build Volumes

Posted on by

Majenta Strongheart takes a look at a couple of cool entries from the first round of the 2018 Hackaday Prize:

This is an infinite 3D printer. The Workhorse 3D is the way we’re going to democratize 3D printing. The Workhorse 3D printer does this by adding a conveyor belt to the bed of a 3D printer, allowing for rapid manufacturing, not just prototyping. [Swaleh Owais] created the Workhorse 3D printer to automatically start a print, manufacture an object, then remove that print from the print bed just to start the cycle all over again.

Check out this Numitron Hexadecimal …read more

Continue reading Video Quick-Bit: Numitrons and Infinite Build Volumes→

Litar: An Air Guitar Using LiDAR

Posted on by

This year, [Blecky’s] Hackaday Prize Entry is an air guitar which uses multiple LiDAR sensors to create the virtual strings. What’s also neat is that he’s using his own LiDAR sensor, the MappyDot Plus, an enhanced version of his 2017 Prize Entry, the MappyDot.

He uses a very clever arrangement of six sensors to get four virtual strings. Each sensor scans a 25-degree field of view. Three adjacent sensors are used to define a string, with the string being in the overlap of the outer two of those sensors. The middle sensor is used for the distance data.

For the …read more

Continue reading Litar: An Air Guitar Using LiDAR→

Friday Hack Chat: Control Schemes For Robotics

Posted on by

The Hackaday Prize is in full swing if you haven’t heard. It’s the Academy Awards of Open hardware, and the chance for you — yes, you — to create the next great piece of hardware and a better future for everyone. Right now, we’re in the Robotics Module Challenge portion of the prize. This is your chance to build a module that could be used in robotics projects across the world! Show off your mechatronic skills and build a robotics module that’s transferable to other builds!

Not coincidentally, for this week’s Hack Chat, we’re talking all about Robotics Modules. We’re …read more

Continue reading Friday Hack Chat: Control Schemes For Robotics→

Custom Chips As A Service

Posted on by

Ages ago, making a custom circuit board was hard. Either you had to go buy some traces at Radio Shack, or you spent a boatload of money talking to a board house. Now, PCBs are so cheap, I’m considering tiling my bathroom with them. Today, making a custom chip is horrifically expensive. You can theoretically make a transistor at home, but anything more demands quartz tube heaters and hydrofluoric acid. Custom ASICs are just out of reach for the home hacker, unless you’re siphoning money off of some crypto Ponzi scheme.

Now things may be changing. Costs are coming down, …read more

Continue reading Custom Chips As A Service→

Tiny Vacuum Chamber Arm to Help with Homemade Semiconductors

Posted on by

[Nixie] wants to make semiconductors at home, and that requires some unusual tools. Chief among them is a vacuum chamber to perform thin-film deposition, and true to the hacker credo his is homemade, and will soon be equipped with a tiny manipulator arm with magnetically coupled mechanical controls.

If [Nixie]’s setup looks familiar, it might be because we featured his plasma experiments a few days ago. He was a little cagey then about his goal, but he’s come clean with his desire to make his own FETs (a project that is his 2018 Hackaday Prize entry). Doing so will require …read more

Continue reading Tiny Vacuum Chamber Arm to Help with Homemade Semiconductors→

Robotics Module Challenge: Build Robot, Win Prizes

Posted on by

Brand new today, we’re going to go all in with the Robotics Module Challenge! This is the newest part of the 2018 Hackaday Prize which is only six weeks old, and already we’ve seen almost six hundred incredible entries. But a new challenge means a fresh start and a perfect time for you to begin your entry.

This is your call to build a module that can be used in robotics projects across the world. Twenty module designs will be awarded $1,000 and and chance at the five top prizes including the $50,000 grand prize!

Robotics is the kitchen sink …read more

Continue reading Robotics Module Challenge: Build Robot, Win Prizes→

Counting Without Transistors

Posted on by

The Hackaday Prize is all about Building Hope. We want to see hardware creators change the world with microcontrollers and breadboards. That’s a noble goal, but it also doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. That’s exactly what [Yann] is doing with a pile of surplus Soviet components, a bunch of bodge wire, and exactly zero transistors. He’s building a hexadecimal display module using only relays and diodes. It’s absurd, but still very very cool.

The inspiration for this build comes from homebrew computing. With this, there’s a recurring problem of displaying the status of a bus. Sure, a bank of …read more

Continue reading Counting Without Transistors→

Roomba-Riding Beer Butlers Will Serve Us All

Posted on by

[Josh] isn’t one to refuse a challenge, especially when robots are involved. The latest dare from friends and family? Build a beer robot that can bring beverages at everyone’s beck and call.

The build consists of two main parts: the refrigerated cooler and the butler part, which comes courtesy of a Roomba Discovery from a fellow roboticist. [Josh] is basing the design on double-walled and insulated restaurant coolers. He built the refrigerated beverage hold from two stainless steel trash cans, sized an inch or so apart in diameter, and filled the gap with expanding foam insulation. He then cut away …read more

Continue reading Roomba-Riding Beer Butlers Will Serve Us All→

This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest In Open Hardware

Posted on by

This is the last weekend to get in on the Open Hardware Design Challenge, the first challenge of the 2018 Hackaday Prize. We’re looking for the boldest idea you can come up with. We want to see the beginnings of the next great bit of Open Hardware, and this is your chance to do it.

The Hackaday community has thrown itself into The Hackaday Prize and so far we have more than five hundred entries in the running to Build Hope and become the next great piece of Open Hardware. Next week, we’ll choose the top twenty projects to advance …read more

Continue reading This Is Your Last Chance To Design The Greatest In Open Hardware→