We aren’t sure if [Looking Glass Universe] didn’t trust the accepted number for Planck’s constant, or just wanted the experience of measuring it herself. Either way, she took some LEDs and worked out the correct figure. Apparently, it hasn’t changed since we first measured it in 1916. But it’s always good to check. The constant, […]
[Tito] entered a Self-Charging LED Flasher into the Component Abuse Challenge. It’s a simple re-build of a design by the unstoppable [Burkhard Kainka], and while [Tito] doesn’t explain its workings in detail, it’s a clever experiment in minimalism, and a bit of a head-scratcher at the same time. You press a button and an LED […]
The Las Vegas Sphere is great and all, but few of us can afford the expense to travel to out there to see it on the regular. If you’re looking for similar vibes you can access at home, you might enjoy the desk toy that [AGBarber] has designed. The scale is small — the sphere […]
Over on YouTube our hacker [VIP Love Secretary] shows us how to make a simple MOSFET tester. This is a really neat, useful, elegant, and simple hack, but the video is kind of terrible. We found that the voice-over constantly saying “right?” and “look!” seriously drove us to distraction. But this is a circuit which […]
Over on Instructables, [Logan Fouts] shows us the Contrib Cal GitHub desk gadget. This build will allow you to sport your recent GitHub commit activity on your wall or desk with an attractive diffuse light display backed by a 7×4 matrix of multicolor LEDs. Motivate yourself and impress your peers! This humble project is at […]
Over on his blog our hacker [Scott Baker] restores a Prompt 80, which was a development system for the 8-bit Intel 8080 CPU. [Scott] acquired this broken trainer on eBay and then set about restoring it. The trainer provides I/O for programming, probing, and debugging an attached CPU. The first problem discovered when opening the […]
The 2025 One Hertz Challenge is really heating up with all kinds of projects that do something once every second. [The Baiko] has given us a rather abstract entry that looks like a plane…if you squint at it under the right conditions. It’s actually quite an amusing abstract build. If you’ve ever seen planes flying […]
Making an LED blink is usually achieved by interrupting its power supply, This can be achieved through any number of oscillator circuits, or even by means of a mechanical system and a switch. For the 2025 One Hertz Challenge though, [jeremy.geppert] has eschewed such means. Instead his LED is always on, and is made to […]
What should your first instinct be when the room catches on fire? Maybe get out of the room, pull an alarm, and have a disco party? Not your first instinct? Well, this seemed pretty obvious to [Flying-Toast], who retrofitted an old fire alarm to activate a personal disco party. After finding a fire alarm being […]
Sometimes, brilliant perspectives need a bit of an introduction first, and this is clearly one. This video essay by [Cleggy] delivers what it promises: an ode to the aesthetic of light. But he goes further, materializing his way of viewing things into a beautiful physical build — and the full explanation of how to do […]