Laser Draws Weather Report

Have you ever wished that a laser could tell you the weather? If you have, then [tuckershannon] has you covered. He’s created a machine that uses a laser and some UV sensitive paper to draw the temperature and a weather icon! And that’s not all! It’s connected to the internet, so it can also show the time and print out messages.

Building on [tuckershannon]’s previous work with glow-in-the-dark drawing, the brains inside this machine is a Raspberry Pi Zero. The laser itself is a 5mw, 405nm laser pointer with the button zip-tied down. Two 28BYJ-48 stepper motors are used to …read more

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Location Sharing with Google Home

With Google’s near-monopoly on the internet, it can be difficult to get around in cyberspace without encountering at least some aspect of this monolithic, data-gathering giant. It usually takes a concerted effort, but it is technically possible to do. While [Mat] is still using some Google products, he has at least figured out a way to get Google Home to work with location data without actually sharing that data with Google, which is a step in the right direction.

[Mat]’s goal was to use Google’s location sharing features through Google Home, but without the creepiness factor of Google knowing everything …read more

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Polaroid Gets Thermal Printer and Raspberry Pi

Despite what you may have read in the comments, we here at Hackaday are not unaware that there’s something of a “Pi Fatigue” brewing. Similar to how “Arduino” was once a dirty word around these parts, projects that are built around the world’s most popular Linux SBC are occasionally getting dismissed as lazy. Hacker crams Raspberry Pi into an old electronic device, applies hot glue liberally, posts a gallery on Imgur, and boom! Lather, rinse, repeat.

We only mention this because the following project, despite featuring the Raspberry Pi Zero grafted into a vintage Polaroid camera, is anything but lazy. …read more

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Raspberry Pi Zero Drives Tiny RC Truck

We’re not sure which is more fun – putting together a little RC truck with parts laying around on your workbench, or driving it around through a Linux terminal. We’ll take the easy road and say they’re both equally fun. [technodict] had some spare time on his hands and decided to build such a truck.

He started off with a great little chassis that can act as the base for many projects. Powering the four motors is a cheap little dual H bridge motor driver and a couple rechargeable batteries. But the neatest part of this build is that it’s …read more

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A Dreamcast VMU With A Secret

Since the Raspberry Pi range of boards first appeared back in 2012, we’ve seen them cleverly integrated into a host of inventive form factors. Today we bring you the latest offering in this space, [Kite]’s Raspberry Pi Zero W installed in the case of a Sega Dreamcast VMU. The result is a particularly nicely executed build in which the Pi with a few of its more bulky components removed or replaced with low-profile alternatives sits on the opposite side of a custom PCB from a small LCD display.

The PCB contains the relevant buttons, audio, and power supply circuitry, and …read more

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An Unconference Badge That’s Never Gonna Give You Up

When your publication is about to hold a major event on your side of the world, and there will be a bring-a-hack, you abruptly realise that you have to do just that. Bring a hack. With the Hackaday London Unconference in the works this was the problem I faced, and I’d run out of time to put together an amazing PCB with beautiful artwork and software-driven functionality to amuse and delight other attendees. It was time to come up with something that would gain me a few Brownie points while remaining within the time I had at my disposal alongside …read more

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An Unconference Badge That’s Never Gonna Give You Up

When your publication is about to hold a major event on your side of the world, and there will be a bring-a-hack, you abruptly realise that you have to do just that. Bring a hack. With the Hackaday London Unconference in the works this was the problem I faced, and I’d run out of time to put together an amazing PCB with beautiful artwork and software-driven functionality to amuse and delight other attendees. It was time to come up with something that would gain me a few Brownie points while remaining within the time I had at my disposal alongside …read more

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Raspberry Pi: Learn How to Build Amazing IoT & Robotics Projects at Home

Do you want to make your own robot at home? But, of course, one can not spend hundreds or thousands of dollars, and definitely would not be able to join a 4-year-long engineering institute to learn how to do it?

Well, we have good news for you—Try the Raspberry Pi board to create amazing projects at highly affordable cost.
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Raspberry Pi is a tiny, cheaper and customizable

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Nerf Gun Ammo Counter and Range Finder

The proliferation of breakout boards that the DIY electronics movement has allowed has been staggering. Buy a few different boards, wire them together to a microcontroller or credit-card computer (both on their own breakout board) and write a bit of code, and you can create some really interesting things. Take Reddit user [Lord_of_Bone]’s Nerf Gun ammo counter and range finder, for example, a great example of having a great idea and looking around for the ways to implement it.

For the range finder, [Lord_of_Bone] looked to an ultrasonic rangefinder. For the ammo counter, [Lord_of_Bone] chose a proximity sensor. To run …read more

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Finishing A Mini PS One: SLA vs Extruded

One of the biggest lessons learned by first time 3D printer users is that not everything can be replicated and a printer is a machine and not a miracle worker. It has limitations in terms of what it can print as well as the quality of the output. For teeny tiny objects, the 0.8 mm nozzle will just not do and with resin printers on the rise, the question is, ‘are extruder printers obsolete?’

[Dorison Hugo] has made a mini version of the PS One using a Raspberry Pi which you can play games one. The kicker is that in …read more

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