YOLO can mean many things, but in the context of [be_riddickulous]’s AI Talking Robot Dinosaur it refers to the “You Only Look Once” YOLOv11 object-detection algorithm by Ultralytics, the method by which this adorable dino recognizes colors and shapes to teach them to children. If you’re new to using YOLO or object recognition more generally, […]
If William Gibson and Bruce Sterling had written an arcade scene into “The Difference Engine”, it probably would have looked a lot like [Pete Wood]’s Meccano Martian Mission, as illustrated in the video below by the [London Meccano Club]. Meccano Martian Mission is an homage to Atari’s 1978 Lunar Lander video game, but entirely electromechanical […]
What do you do when you’re a starving student and you need a 400 MHz logic analyzer for your digital circuit investigations? As [nanofix] shows in a recent video, you find one that’s available as an open hardware project and build it yourself. The project, aptly named LogicAnalyzer was developed by [Dr. Gusman] a few […]
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 […]
Few of us will ever find ourselves piloting a full-sized military tank. Instead, you might like to make do with the RC variety. [TRDB] has whipped up one of their own design which features a small little pellet cannon to boot. The tank is assembled from 3D printed components — with PETG filament being used […]
Some hacks just tickle the brain in a very particular way. They’re, for a change, not overly engineered; they’re just elegant, anachronistic, and full of mischief. That’s exactly what [Frans] pulls off with A Gentleman’s Orrery, a tiny, simple clockwork solar system. Composed of shiny brass and the poise of 18th-century craftsmanship, it hides a […]
For most of us, turrets that aim and shoot at things are the sole domain of video games. However, they’re remarkably easy to build with modern technology, as [meub] demonstrates. Meet the SwarmTurret. The build is based around an existing foam blaster, namely the Nerf Swarmfire. This blaster was chosen for being easy to integrate […]
Some readers may recall building a line-following robot during their school days. Involving some IR LEDs, perhaps a bit of LEGO, and plenty of trial-and-error, it was fun on a tiny scale. Now imagine that—but rideable. That’s exactly what [Austin Blake] did, scaling up a classroom robotics staple into a full-size vehicle you can actually […]
If you’ve ever squinted at a DE10-Nano wondering where the fun part begins, you’re not alone. This review of the Mr. MultiSystem 2 by [Lee] lifts the veil on a surprisingly noob-friendly FPGA console that finally gets the MiSTer experience out of the tinker cave and into the living room. Developed by Heber, the same […]