Before there were Nintendo Switches, there were Game Boys. And before that there were all the successive generations of Game Boys and other consoles right back to the Game and Watch, and then those handheld Simon and Space Invaders games of the late 1970s. These devices typically packed a 4-bit microcontroller and an array of […]
It’s basically a lightsaber. Except smaller. And with an invisible blade. And cold to the touch. But other than that, this homebrew cold plasma torch (YouTube, embedded below) is just like the Jedi’s choice in elegant weaponry. Perhaps we shouldn’t kid [Justin] given how hard he worked on this project – seventeen prototypes before hitting […]
Like pretty much all of us, [Andy Schwarz] loves RGB LEDs. Specifically he likes to put them on RC vehicles, such as navigation lights on airplanes or flashers and headlights on cars. He found himself often rewriting very similar Arduino code for each one of these installations, and eventually decided he could save himself (and […]
Our single board microcontroller platforms have become smaller over the years, from the relatively large classic Arduino and Beagleboard form factors of a decade ago to the postage stamp sized Feather and ESP boards of today. But just how small can they go? With current components, [Femtoduino] think they’ve cracked it, delivering an ESP32-based board […]
Acquiring a new YouTube subscriber is a blessed event that deserves far more fanfare than a phone notification. But maybe blinkenlights don’t really do it for you anymore, or you simply prefer to be soothed sonically rather than visually. Well, what could be more satisfying than the crisp clack of an electromechanical 7-segment display? Six […]
Many electric cars feature a timer capability that allows the owner to set which hours they want the vehicle to start pulling a charge. This lets the thrifty EV owner take advantage of the fact that the cost of electricity generally goes down late at night when the demand is lower. The Renault Zoe that […]
When a tip comes in and the tipster feels they have to reassure us that despite appearances their subject is not facilitating crime, it certainly gets our attention. [Flam2006] has a Brinks home security system which can only be configured using a special device only available to installers, and though they managed to secure one […]
It seems 3D printers have been around for ages and still we don’t have a good solution for turning physical 3D objects into digital ones. Yes, 3D scanners exist, but the OpenScan is the best 3D scanner we’ve seen. It’s a 3D printed device meant to take pictures of an object that can then be […]