Collaborate Disseminate
Electric-assisted bicycles, or ebikes, are fundamentally changing the way people get around cities and towns. What were once sweaty, hilly, or difficult rides have quickly turned into a low-impact and …read more Continue reading Paddling Help from Electric-Assisted Kayak
When one of your design goals for a 3D printer is “fits through standard doors,” you know you’re going to be able to print some pretty big stuff. And given …read more Continue reading A 3D Printer Big Enough to Print a Kayak
Only few cinematic moments were as traumatically heartbreaking as [Mufasa]’s death in The Lion King and [Wilson]’s demise in Cast Away. To think, if only [Tom Hanks]’ character had found a role of stretch wrap in the washed up cargo content, he could have built a vessel with enough …read more
Continue reading It’s A Boat? It’s A Duck? It’s A DIY Plastic Wrap Kayak!
Splunk, the publicly traded data processing and analytics company, today announced that it has acquired SignalFx for a total price of about $1.05 billion. Approximately 60% of this will be in cash and 40% in Splunk common stock. The companies expect the acquisition to close in the second half of 2020. SignalFx, which emerged from […] Continue reading Splunk acquires cloud monitoring service SignalFx for $1.05B
Kayaks are a some of the most versatile watercraft around. You can fish from them, go on backpacking trips, or just cruise around your local lake for a few hours. They’re inexpensive, lightweight, don’t require fuel, and typically don’t require a license or insurance to operate. They also make a great platform for a solar-powered boat like this one with only 150 watts of panels and a custom-built motor with parts from an RC airplane.
[William Frasier] built his solar-powered kayak using three solar panels, two mounted across the bow of the boat using pontoons to keep them from dipping …read more
Last year we wrote about Hackerbot Labs’ autonomous boat, which project members hope to someday circumnavigate the globe. Now called Project Ladon, progress continues apace with a recent ocean test of their modified 18’ kayak, the TSV Disputed Right of Way. The kayak’s internal spaces contain a pair of lead-acid truck batteries controlled by a home-brewed control system that uses relays to control the craft’s trolling motor, with a Beaglebone and Arduino Mega under the hood.
The test was not exactly a success, with the boat actually avoiding the waypoints rather than sticking to them. Fortunately the team was …read more
Continue reading Ambitious Hackerboat Project Still Aiming High
Now you can approve expenses, assign deadlines, check flights, and interact with other enterprise tools from inside Slack with its new Message Buttons. Slack is vying to become your always-open portal to work with the biggest update to its API since its December launch. For example, just type “/kayak flights from NYC to BOS on 6/23” and you’ll get shown flight options with… Read More Continue reading Never leave Slack with message button bots for using Kayak, Trello, and more
There’s a gritty feel to the Hackerboat project. It doesn’t have slick and polished marketing, people lined up with bags of money to get in on the ground floor, or a flashy name (which I’ll get to in a bit). What it does have is a dedicated team of hackers who are building prototypes to solve some really big challenges. Operating on the ocean is tough on equipment, especially so with electronics. Time and tenacity has carried this team and their project far.
I first met [Pierce Nichols] at the paella dinner that caps Friday of Bay Area Maker Faire. …read more
