When you’re hunting for a signal with your oscilloscope, the stronger it is, the better. If it’s weak, you might struggle to tease it out from other interference, or even from the noise floor itself. You might wish that you were looking for something more obvious rather than the electromagnetic equivalent of a needle in […]
In 2025 we are spoiled for choice when it comes to displays, with affordable LCDs, OLEDs, TFTs, and e-ink panels of all sizes only a few clicks away. But in decades past, such exotica were not on the menu for casual construction. Instead there were a range of LED seven segment displays which have now […]
Near my childhood home was a small river. It wasn’t much more than a creek at the best of times, and in dry summers it would sometimes almost dry up completely. But snowmelt revived it each Spring, and the remains of tropical storms in late Summer and early Fall often transformed it into a raging […]
Starting January 1st, 2026, Washington state’s new Right to Repair law will come into effect. It requires manufacturers to make tools, parts and documentation available for diagnostics and repair of ‘digital electronics’, including cellphones, computers and similar appliances. The relevant House Bill 1483 was signed into law last week after years of fighting to make […]
[Kalesh Sasidharan] from Sciotronics wrote in to tell us about their project, Stamp: a modular set of template breakout boards designed to make prototyping with SMD components faster, easier, and more affordable. No breadboards, custom PCBs, or tangled jumper wires required. The project has blasted past its Kickstarter goal, and is on track to start […]
In the early years of electrification, when electricity was beginning to shape the modern world, this new technology was being put to use in many more places than turning motors and providing lighting. Some things we can see as obvious missteps like electrified corsets marketed as health tonics or x-ray treatments for eye strain, but […]
Today in material science news we have a report from [German Science Guy] about a new supermaterial which is as strong as steel and as light as Styrofoam! A supermaterial is a type of material that possesses remarkable physical properties, often surpassing traditional materials in strength, conductivity, or other characteristics. Graphene, for example, is considered […]
Do you ever get tired of stressing your neck looking for planes in the sky? Worry not! Here is a neat and cheap Arduino/Ras Pi project to keep your neck sore free! [BANK ANGLE] presents a wonderfully simple plane tracking system using an affordable camera and basic microcontrollers. The bulk of the system relies on […]
For those motorcyclists looking to get a classic American-style cruiser, often the go-to brand is Harley-Davidson. However, these bikes not only have reputations for being stuck in the past, both in terms of design and culture, but they also tend to be extremely expensive—not only upfront, but in maintenance as well. If you want the […]
This entry into the 2025 Pet Hacks Contest is about bringing some fun feedback to normally silent plants. Fytó integrates sensors and displays into a 3D printed planter. The sensors read the various environmental and soil conditions that the plant is experiencing, and give you feedback about them via a series of playful expressive faces […]