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Hackaday Podcast

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Hackaday Editors take a look at all of the interesting uses of technology that pop up on the internet each week. Topics cover a wide range like bending consumer electronics to your will, designing circuit boards, building robots, writing software, 3D printing interesting objects, and using machine tools. Get your fix of geeky goodness from new episodes every Friday morning.
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Episodes

Ep033: Decompressing from Camp, Nuclear Stirling Engines, Carphone or Phonecar, and ArduMower

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams recorded this week's podcast live from Chaos Communication Camp, discussing the most interesting hacks on offer over the past week. I novel locomotion news, there's a quadcopter built around the coanda effect and an autonomous boat built into a plastic storage bin. The radiation spikes in Russia point to a nuclear-powered ramjet but the idea is far from new. Stardust (well... space rock dust) is falling from the sky and it's surprisingly easy to c...

Aug 30, 20191 hr

Ep032: Meteorite Snow Globes, Radioactive Ramjet Rockets, Autonomous Water Boxes, and Ball Reversers

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams recorded this week's podcast live from Chaos Communication Camp, discussing the most interesting hacks on offer over the past week. I novel locomotion news, there's a quadcopter built around the coanda effect and an autonomous boat built into a plastic storage bin. The radiation spikes in Russia point to a nuclear-powered ramjet but the idea is far from new. Stardust (well... space rock dust) is falling from the sky and it's surprisingly easy to c...

Aug 23, 201939 min

Ep 031: Holonomic Drives, Badges of DEF CON, We Don't Do On-Chip Debugging, and Manufacturing Snafus

Mike Szczys and Kerry Scharfglass recorded this week's podcast live from DEF CON. Among the many topics of discussion, we explore some of the more interesting ways to move a robot. From BB-8 to Holonomic Drives, Kerry's hoping to have a proof of concept in time for Supercon. Are you using On-Chip Debugging with your projects? Neither are we, but maybe we should. The same goes for dynamic memory allocation; but when you have overpowered micros like the chip on the Teensy 4.0, why do you need to? ...

Aug 16, 201938 min

Ep030: 7 Years of RTL-SDR, 3D Prints Optimized for the Eye, Sega Audiophile, Swimming in Brighteners

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams curate the awesome hacks from the past week. On this episode, we marvel about the legacy RTL-SDR has had on the software-defined radio scene, turn a critical ear to 16-bit console audio hardware, watch generative algorithms make 3D prints beautiful, and discover why printer paper is so very, very bright white. Show Notes: https://hackaday.com/?p=370890

Aug 09, 201950 min

Ep029: Your Face in Silver Sand, Tires of the Future, ESP32 all the CNC Things, and Sub in a Jug

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys geek out over the latest hacks. This week we saw a couple of clever CNC builds that leverage a great ESP32 port of GRBL. The lemonade-pitcher-based submarine project is everything you thought couldn't work in an underwater ROV. Amazon's newest Dot has its warranty voided to show off what 22 pounds gets you these days. And there's a great tutorial on debugging circuits that grew out of a Fail of the Week. Plus, we get the wind knocked out of us wit...

Aug 02, 201956 min

Ep028: Brain Skepticism Turned Up to 11, Web Browsing in '69, Verilog For 7400 Logic

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams cover the most interesting hacks over the past week. So much talk of putting computers in touch with our brains has us skeptical on both tech and timeline. We celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Walkman, but the headphones are the real star. Plus, Verilog isn't just for FPGAs, you can synthesize 7400 circuits too! Elliot is enamored by a subtractive printing process that uses particle board, and we discuss a couple of takes on hybrid-powered dr...

Jul 26, 201954 min

Ep027: Confusingly USB-C, Glowey Displays, Logically VGA, Hackers that Changed Gaming

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys dive into the most interesting hacks of the week. Confused by USB-C? So are we, and so is the Raspberry Pi 4. Learning VGA is a lot easier when abstract concepts are unpacked onto a huge breadboard using logic chips and an EEPROM. Adding vision to a prosthetic hand makes a lot of sense when you start to dig into possibilities of this Hackaday Prize entry. And Elliot gets nostalgic about Counter-Strike, the game that is a hack of Half-Life, grew to...

Jul 19, 201949 min

Ep026: Tamper-Proof Electronics, Selfie Drones, Rocket Fuel, Wire Benders, Wizard-Level Soldering

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams are back after last week's holiday break to track down all of the hacks you missed. There are some doozies; a selfie-drone controlled by your body position, a Theremin that sings better than you can, how about a BGA hand-soldering project whose creator can't even believe he pulled it off. Kristina wrote a spectacular article on the life and career of Mary Sherman Morgan, and Tom tears down a payment terminal he picked up in an abandoned Toys R Us,...

Jul 12, 201942 min

Ep025: Of Cheese Graters, Fauxberries, Printed Gears, Power Latching, and Art-Loving AI

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams dish their favorite hacks from the past week. Seems like everyone is trying to mill their own Mac Pro grille and we love seeing how they go about it. Elliot is gaga over a quintet of power latching circuits, Mike goes crazy for a dough sheeter project, and we dig through the news behind methane on Mars, the Raspberry Pi 4 release, and spoofing Presidential text alerts with SDR. If you like mini-keyboards you need to see the Fauxberry, Artificial I...

Jun 28, 201952 min

Ep024: Mashing Smartphone Buttons, Sound Blastering, Trash Printing, and a Ludicrous Loom

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys wade through the fun hacks of the week. Looks like Google got caught ripping off song lyrics (how they got caught is the hack) and electric cars are getting artificially noisier. We look at 3D Printing directly from used plastic, and building a loom with many hundreds of 3D printed parts. The Sound Blaster 1.0 lives again thanks to some (well-explained) reverse engineered circuitry. Your smartphone is about to get a lot more buttons that work with...

Jun 21, 201949 min

Ep023: Everything Breaks... Raspberry Pi, ADS-B, Hackaday Website, and Automotive Airbags

Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams talk news and great hacks from the past seven days. Sad word this week as Maker Media, the company behind Make Magazine and Maker Faire, have closed their doors. There seems to be a lot of news about broken hardware to discuss with ADS-B problems grounding hundreds of flights in the US, Hackaday itself had a site outage, Raspberry Pi 3 B+ can be bricked with a really easy mistake, and Lewin wrote a great overview of the Takata airbag debacle. Don't worry there are...

Jun 14, 201956 min

Ep022: King of Power Banks, Great SDR Hacks, Sand Reflow, and Rat Rod Mower

Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys dig through the most interesting hacks from the past week. On this episode we take a look at a portable power bank build that defies belief. We discuss an all-in-one SDR portable, messing with restaurant pagers, and the software that's common to both of these pursuits. There's a hopping robot that is one heck of a PID challenge, and another robot that does nothing but stare you down. We bring it on home with great articles on pianos with floppy disks, and that sat...

Jun 07, 201943 min

Ep021: Chasing Rockets, Tripping on Synthesizers, an IoT Security Fail, and Alzheimer's Detection

Mike Szcycz is on a well-deserved vacation this week, so staff writer Dan Maloney joins managing editor Elliot Williams for a look at all the great hacks of the week. On this episode we're talking about licensing fees for MIDI 2.0, a two-way fail while snooping on employees, and the potential for diagnosing Alzheimer's with virtual reality. We also dive into the well-engineered innards of a robotic cheetah, a personal assistant safe enough for kids to use, and how listening to your monitor revea...

May 31, 201949 min

Ep020: Slaying the Dragon of EL, Siege Weapon Physics, Dis-entangled Charlieplex, Laser Internet

Join editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys as they unpack all the great hacks we've seen this week. On this episode we're talking about laser Internet delivered from space, unwrapping the complexity of Charlieplexed circuits, and decapping ICs both to learn more about them and to do it safely at home. We have some fun with backyard siege weapons (for learning about physics, we swear!), gambling on FPGAs, and a line-scanning camera that's making selfies fun again. And nobody thought manufacturi...

May 24, 20191 hr 6 min

Ep019: Extreme Clock Accuracy, Mobius Gears and Planetary Stunts, Jamming All Fobs, Pi in Your Wii

Join Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams as they riff on the coolest hacks from the past week. Clocks and 3D printing seem to keep coming up this week as we look at using an FPGA plus GPS receiver for better accuracy than we're used to, and we haggle over what to call the robot arms that nudge the hands on a shelf-clock. There's a wicked 3D-printed planetary gear design, and brackets that turn flat cardboard into boxes (more useful than you might think). We close out with great reads on the Supermic...

May 17, 201941 min

Ep018: Faxploitation! Ikea RFID Hacking, Space Ads, Hydrogen Dones, And Blinkies

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys gather round the microphone to spin tales from a week of hacks. All the rage are fax-machine-based malware, a hydrogen fuel cell drone, and bringing color to the monochrome world of the original Super Mario Land. There are at least three really cool LED hacks this week, plus Tom's been exploring space advertising, Maya's debunking solder myths, and Elliot goes ga-ga for a deep Ikea electronics hack. Closing out the show is an interview with Bart D...

May 10, 201953 min

Ep017: Are Cheap Microcontrollers Worth It? Android on Your Bike. Plus Food Printers and Coffee Bots

Join editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams as they recount a week of fascinating hacks. We take a good look at the PMS150C, a microcontroller that literally costs pennies but can only be flashed once. SNES emulators have a new trick up their sleeves to make low-def a lot less low, and you retro enthusiasts will either hate or love the NES zapper chandelier. Elliot's enamored by a bike computer running Android core, and both Mike and Elliot delve into the food hacking scene, be it meat, chocola...

May 03, 201955 min

EP015: Going Low Frequency, Robotic Machines, Disk Usage For Budgets, And Cellphones Versus Weather

Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss the highlights of the great hacks from the past week. On this episode we discuss wireless charging from scratch, Etch-A-Sketch selfies, the robot arm you really should build yourself, bicycle tires and steel nuts for anti-slip footwear, and bending the piezo-electric effect to act as a VLF antenna. Plus we delve into articles you can't miss about 5G and robot firefighting. https://hackaday.com/?p=355057

Apr 19, 201957 min

EP014: Keeping Raspberry's SD Card Alive, We Love MRRF, and How Hot Are Flip Chips?

Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys take a look at advances in photogrammetry (building 3D models out of many photographs from a regular camera), a delay pedal that's both aesthetically and aurally pleasing, and the power of AI to identify garden slugs. Mike interviews Scotty Allen while walking the streets and stores of the Shenzhen Electronics markets. We delve into SD card problems with Raspberry Pi, putting industrial controls on your desk, building a Geiger counter for WiFi, and the sad truth a...

Apr 12, 201956 min

Ep012: Nearly Perpetual Motion, Mars Rover Carries Kid, and Doc Brown's Cat Feeder

Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys catch up on the past week in hackerdom. It seems as if we're in a golden age of machine building as an incredible rocker-bogie rover is built to transport a child and mechanical simplicity automates the wet cat food dispensing process. We marvel at the ability to use G-code to decorate eggs (them being curvy in more than one direction and all). The we contemplate the ability to build and start a motor which will continue to run long after your own life end...

Mar 29, 201946 min

Ep011: Weird Keyboards, Salvaging LCD Screens, and Mike Interviews Ivan of Espressif in Shanghai

With our intrepid Editor in Chief Mike Szczys off being kind of a big deal in China, Managing Editor Elliot Williams is joined by Staff Writer Tom Nardi to talk about all the hacks that were fit to print over the past week. Join us as we talk about the wide world of custom mechanical keyboards, reviving a woefully antiquated display technology, building your own RC transmitter out of stuff you have laying around the lab, and the unexpected parallels between Pepto Bismol and rocket fuel. Show not...

Mar 22, 20191 hr 8 min

Ep010: XKCD Graphs, Turing Complete Meta Computers, False Finger Printing 3D Printers, and Jargon

Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys walk through the past week in hackerdom. There's a new jargon quiz! Do you know what astrictive robotic prehension means? We look at the $50 Ham series, omni-wheeled pen plotting robots, a spectrum of LED hacks, LEGO CNC for chocolate rework, and grinding lenses with a CNC mill. In the "can't miss" category are fingerprinting 3D Printers, and how NASA designs far beyond the stated life of an engineering project. Show notes at hackaday.com/?p=349624

Mar 15, 201953 min

Ep009: On the Edge of AI, Comment Your Code, Big Big Wheels, and Makers of Munich

Catch up on the past week of hacks with Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys. "AI on the Edge" is the buzzword of choice lately, with hardware offerings from BeagleBone and Google to satiate your thirst. We take on spotty data from Tesla, driving around on four bouncy-houses, reverse engineering a keytar, unearthing a gem of a dinosaur computer, and MIPI DSI display hacking. There are tips for getting better at commenting code, and making your computer do your algebra homework. Show ...

Mar 08, 201952 min

Ep008: The Art Episode: Joe Kim, Strings And CRTs, Hydrogen Done 2-Ways

We know you love the original art on Hackaday. Those fantastic illustrations are the work of Joe Kim, and he joins us as a guest on this week’s episode to talk about his background, what inspires him, and how he pulls it all off. This episode is still packed with hacks. Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams somehow stumble into two projects that end up generating hydrogen (despite that not being their purpose). But that art angle this week goes beyond Joe’s guest appearance as we look at a hac...

Mar 01, 201952 min

Ep007: Everything Microcontrollers, Deadly Clock Accuracy, CT X-Rays, Mountains Of E-Waste

Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys look at all that's happening in hackerdom. This week we dive deep into super-accurate clock chips, SPI and microcontroller trickery, a new (and cheap) part on the microcontroller block, touch-sensitive cloth, and taking a home X-ray to the third dimension. We're saying our goodbyes to the magnificent A380, looking with skepticism on the V2V tech known as DSRC, and also trying to predict weather with automotive data. And finally, what's the deal with that growing p...

Feb 22, 20191 hr 6 min

Ep005: Undead Lightbulbs, Home Chemistry, and the Strength of 3D Printing

Catch up on interesting hacks from the past week with Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams. This week we discuss the story behind falling lifetime ratings for LED bulbs, look at finite element analysis to strengthen 3D printed parts, ogle the beauty of blacksmithing, and marvel at open source Lidar development. We delve into great reader suggestions for Blue Pill projects sparked by last week’s podcast, discuss some history of the V2 rocket, and cover Chromecast control hardware, glo...

Feb 08, 201947 min

Ep004: Taking the Blue Pill, Abusing Resistors, and Searching for Drones

Catch up on your Hackaday with this week’s podcast. Mike and Elliot riff on the "blue pill" (ST32F103 boards), blackest of black paints, hand-crafted sorting machines, a 3D printer bed leveling system that abuses some 2512 resistors, how cyborgs are going mainstream, and the need for more evidence around airport drone sightings. Show notes: http://hackaday.com/2019/02/01/hackaday-podcast-ep004-taking-the-blue-pill-abusing-resistors-and-not-finding-drones/

Feb 01, 201939 min
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