Field News

The Raspberry Pi line of single-board computers are remarkably useful things, but they generally require some accessories to be hooked up to become a useful computing platform. [Ramin Assadollahi] wanted a pocket-sized computer to work on without the distractions so common on smartphones, so whipped up the PocketPi to do the job. It’s a testament […]
If you want to take a picture of something fast, and we mean really fast, you need to have a suitably rapid flash to illuminate it. A standard camera flash might be good enough to help capture kids running around the back yard at night, but it’s not going to do you much good if you’re […]
[Aidan] is really into FM synthesis chips for creating audio, and one of the most interesting chips from that era is found on the Sega Genesis. Anyone involved in the console wars at that time certainly remembers the classic, unique sound that those video game systems were able to produce, so [Aidan] built a device […]
Air compressors are often loud, raucous machines – but they don’t have to be. [Eric Strebel] built a remarkably quiet compressor using parts salvaged from an old fridge. After several years of use, it was due for an upgrade (Youtube link, embedded below}. While performance of the original setup was good, [Eric] desired a compressor […]
For something basic like a brushed DC motor, speed control can be quite simple, and powering up the motor is a simple matter of just applying voltage. Brushless motors are much more demanding in their requirements however, and won’t spin unless driven just right. [Electronoobs] has been exploring the design of a brushless speed controller, […]
Despite the incredible advancements in special effects technology since the film’s release, the dinosaurs in 1993’s Jurassic Park still look just as terrifying today as they did nearly 30 years ago. This has largely been attributed to the fact that the filmmakers wisely decided to use physical models in many of the close-up shots, allowing them […]
Over the last few months we’ve seen an influx of homebrew RC controllers come our way, and we’re certainly not complaining. While the prices of commercial RC transmitters are at an all-time low, and many of them can even run an open source firmware, there’s still nothing quite like building the thing yourself. How else […]
For college-aged engineers and designers, finding a problem they’re truly passionate about early on could very well set the trajectory for an entire career. This is precisely the goal of the Cornell Cup, a competition that tasks applicants with solving a real-world problem in a unique and interesting way. From what we saw this is […]
If you’re near San Francisco this weekend, this is what you should be doing. It’s The 6th Annual Hackaday x Tindie MFBA Meetup w/ Kickstarter. Come hang out with the hardware hackers and bring along a project of your own to get the conversation going. We’re excited to move to a new, larger venue this […]
Emojis, the graphical descendants of textual emoticons, are everywhere these days. They’re commonly used on social media platforms as a way of indicating a basic emotional response to a post. That wasn’t enough for [Tadas Maksimovas], who built the Emotigun to really get the point across. Fundamentally, the Emotigun is akin to a Gatling cannon […]