Category: hardware

Balancing robots are always fun to see, as they often take forms we’re not used to, such as a box standing on its corner. This project, submitted by [Alexchunlin], showcases a cool single motor reaction cube, where he dives into many lessons learned during its creation. At the outset, [Alexchunlin] thought this would be a […]
If you’re a mechanical engineering wonk, you might appreciate this latest video from [Henry Segerman] wherein he demonstrates his various expanding racks. [Henry] explains how the basic “double-rack” unit can be combined to make more complex structures. These structures are similar in spirit to the Hoberman sphere, which is a compact structure that can be […]
Today in old school nostalgia our tipster [Clint Jay] wrote in to let us know about this rotary dial. If you’re a young whippersnapper you might never have seen a rotary dial. These things were commonly used on telephones back in the day, and they were notoriously slow to use. The way they work is […]
Our hacker [Valve Child] wrote in to let us know about his Back to the Future lunchbox cyberdeck. Great Scott! This is so awesome. We’re not sure what we should say, or where we should begin. A lot of you wouldn’t have been there, on July 3rd, 1985, nearly forty years ago. But we were […]
If you think of a 1960s mainframe computer, it’s likely that your mental image includes alongside the cabinets with the blinkenlights, a row of reel-to-reel tape drives. These refrigerator-sized units had a superficial resemblance to an audio tape deck, but with the tape hanging down in a loop either side of the head assembly. This […]
Over on Hackaday.io there’s a fun and playful write-up for a fun and playful project — the Piko, an ESP32 powered smartwatch. Our hackers [Iloke Alusala], [Lulama Lingela], and [Rafael Cardoso] teamed up to design and manufacture this wrist-worn fitness wearable. Made from an ESP32 Beetle C6 and using an attached accelerometer with simple thresholds […]
Here is a hacker showing off their engineering chops. This video shows successive design iterations for a LEGO vehicle which can cross increasingly large gaps. At the time of writing this video from [Brick Experiment Channel] has been seen more than 110,000,000 times, which is… rather a lot. We guess with a view count like […]
[Leo Goldstien] recently got in touch to let us know about a fascinating update he posted on the Hackaday.io page for ManiPylator — his 3D printed Six degrees of freedom, or 6DOF robotic arm. This latest installment gives us a glimpse at what’s involved for command and control of such a device, as what goes […]
Fiber lasers aren’t nearly as common as their diode and CO2 cousins, but if you’re lucky enough to have one in your garage or local makerspace, this technique for depositing thin films of metals in [Breaking Taps] video, embedded below, might be worth checking out.  It’s a very simple hack: a metal shim or foil […]
In a fusion of scrapyard elegance and Aussie ingenuity, [Mark Makies] has given a piece of old steel a steamy second life with his ‘CastAway Tub’. Call it a bush mechanic’s fever dream turned functional sculpture, starring two vintage LandCruiser leaf springs, and a rust-hugged cast iron tub dug up after 20 years in hiding. […]