Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi meet up virtually to talk about the week's top stories and hacks, such as the fine art of resistor trimming and lessons learned from doing overseas injection molding. They'll go over circuit bending, self-driving cars, and a solar camera that started as a pandemic project and turned into an obsession. You'll also hear about Linux on the Arduino, classic ICs etched into slate, and an incredible restoration of one of the most interesting Thinkpads eve...
Oct 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 5Ep. 241
Date notwithstanding, it's your lucky day as Elliot and Dan get together to review the best hacks of the week. For some reason, film photography was much on our writers' minds this week, as we talked about ways to digitalize an old SLR, and how potatoes can be used to develop film (is there a Monty Python joke in there?) We looked at a 3D printer design that really pulls our strings, the custom insides of the Raspberry Pi 5, and the ins and outs of both ferroresonant transformers and ham radio a...
Oct 13, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 240
Elliot Williams and Al Williams got together again to discuss the best of Hackaday for a week, and you're invited. This week, the guys were into the Raspberry Pi 5, CNC soldering, signal processing, and plasma cutting. There are dangerous power supplies and a custom 11-bit CPU. Of course, there are a few Halloween projects that would fit in perfectly with the upcoming Halloween contest (the deadline is the end of this month; you still have time). OpenSCAD is about to get a lot faster, and a $20 ...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 239
Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this week's episode off with some deep space news, as NASA's OSIRIS-REx returns home with a sample it snapped up from asteroid Bennu back in 2020. From there, discussion moves on to magical part sorting, open source (eventually...) plastic recycling, and the preposterously complex method newer Apple laptops use to determine if their lid is closed. They'll also talk about the changing perceptions of 3D printed parts, a new battery tech that probably won't chang...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 238
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos gathered over the Internet and a couple cups of coffee to bring you the best hacks of the previous week. Well, the ones we liked best, anyhow. First up in the news, we've got a brand-spankin' new Halloween Hackfest contest running now until 9AM PDT on October 31st! Arduino are joining the fun this year and are offering some spooky treats in addition to the $150 DigiKey gift cards for the top three entrants. It's a What's That Sound Re...
Sep 23, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 237
Elliot and Dan got together this time around to recap the week in hacks, and it looks like the Hackaday writing crew very much had cars on their minds. We both took the bait, with tales of privacy-violating cars and taillights that can both cripple a pickup and financially cripple its owner. We went medieval -- OK, more like renaissance -- on a sawmill, pulled a popular YouTuber out of the toilet, and pondered what an animal-free circus would be like. Is RadioShack coming back? Can an ESP32 boar...
Sep 15, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 236
Name one other podcast where you can hear about heavy 3D-printed drones, DIY semiconductors, and using licorice to block laser beams. Throw in homebrew relays, a better mouse trap, and logic analyzers, and you'll certainly be talking about Elliot Williams and Al Williams on Hackaday Podcast 235. There's also contest news, thermoforming, and something that looks a little like 3D-printed Velcro. Elliot and Al also have their semi-annual argument about Vi vs. Emacs. Spoiler alert: they decided they...
Sep 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 235
It might sound like a joke, but this week, Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off by asking how you keep a Polish train from running. Like always, the answer appears to be a properly modulated radio signal. After a fiery tale about Elliot's burned beans, the discussion moves over to the adventure that is home CNC ownership, the final chapter in the saga of the Arecibo Telescope, and the unexpected longevity of Microsoft's Kinect. Then it's on to the proper way to cook a PCB, FFmpeg in th...
Sep 01, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 5Ep. 234
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos experimented with the old adage that brevity is the soul of wit. That's right; this week, they're all Quick Hacks, and that's to make room for a special series of interviews that Elliot recorded at CCCamp with the pillars of US hackerspace creation. This one's really special, do have a listen. We still made room for the news this week: India launched Chandrayaan-3, which combines an orbiter, lander, and rover all in one. Then it's on ...
Aug 25, 2023•46 min•Season 5Ep. 233
Elliot is off at Chaos Communications Camp, and Tom is on vacation, leaving us with no podcast this week. But don't fret, Elliot is picking up a ton of interview material for next week's show. It's gonna be a good one!
Aug 18, 2023•53 sec•Season 5Ep. 232
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Al Williams don't always agree on the best text editor to use, but they do -- usually -- agree on what makes a great hack. This week, they found plenty of Hackaday posts to discuss, ranging from exotic eavesdropping on keyboards, oscilloscopes, and several posts of interest to anyone who wants to build good-looking prototypes. If you are like mechanics, you'll hear about an escapement-like mechanism and a Hobson's coupler. If you crave more traditional hacks, ...
Aug 11, 2023•53 min•Season 5Ep. 231
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start things off by tackling a pair of science stories, one that may or may not change the world, and the other that hopes to help us understand the very fabric of the universe. Afterwards they get to the important stuff: the evolution of Game Boy Camera hacking, the finer points of 3D print orientation, and mixing up electrically conductive concrete at home. From there the conversation shifts to a couple of 486 Turbo butto...
Aug 04, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Season 5Ep. 230
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos braved the slight cold and the high heat respectively to bring you the best hacks of the previous seven days. In the news this week: you've got a second and final chance to get your Supercon talk proposals in ! So get on that, because we need YOU to help make Supercon awesome. We can chalk up a win for Kristina on What's That Sound this week (finally!). Will you get it right? Will you get it exactly right? Time and Elliot's fancy dice...
Jul 28, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 229
Summer's in full swing, and this week both Elliot and Dan had to sweat things out to get the podcast recorded. But the hacks were cool -- see what I did there? -- and provided much-needed relief. Join us as we listen in on the world of bats, look at a laser fit for a hackerspace, and learn how to make an array of magnets greater than -- or less than -- the sum of its parts. There'll be flying eggs, keyboards connected to cell phones, and everything good about 80s and 90s cable TV, as well as som...
Jul 21, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 5Ep. 228
Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this week's episode by addressing the ongoing Red Hat drama and the trend towards "renting" software. The discussion then shifts to homebrew VR gear, a particularly impressive solar-powered speaker, and some promising developments in the world of low-cost thermal cameras. Stay tuned to hear about color-changing breadboards, an unofficial logo for repairable hardware, and five lines of Bash that aim to unseat the entrenched power of Slack. Finally, we'll take t...
Jul 14, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 5Ep. 227
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Al Williams shoot the breeze about all things Hackaday. We start off with some fond remembrances of Don Lancaster, a legendary hardware hacker who passed away last month. There's also news about the Hackaday Prize (the tool competition) and a rant about fast computers and slow software, a topic that drew many comments this week. In the What's That Sound event, Al proves he's more of a Star Trek fan than a videogamer. But there were plenty of correct...
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 226
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos don't have a whole lot in the way of news, but we do know this: the Green Hacks Challenge of the 2023 Hackaday Prize ends precisely at 7AM PDT on July 4th. Show us what you can do in the realm of hacking for the planet, be it solar-based, wind-powered, recycled-trash-powered -- you get the idea. Kristina is now completely down for the count on What's That Sound, although this week, she was sort of in the neighborhood. But no matter, b...
Jun 30, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 225
Elliot and Al got together to discuss this week's projects, and you're invited! You'll hear news about replaceable batteries in the EU, along with some news about the Hacakday Op Amp Challenge winners and the start of a new contest. This week's choice hacks ranged from a Star Wars-style volumetric display, navigation using cosmic rays, measuring car speed with microphones, and a crazy 3D printing technique that will blow you away. There's plenty more where that came from. Ever tried to land a mo...
Jun 23, 2023•50 min•Season 5Ep. 224
Elliot's back from vacation, and Dan stepped into the virtual podcast studio with him to uncover all the hacks he missed while hiking in Italy. There was a lot to miss, what with a smart meter getting snuffed by a Flipper Zero -- or was it? How about a half-gigapixel camera built out of an old scanner, or a sonar-aimed turret gun? We also looked at a couple of projects that did things the hard way, like a TV test pattern generator that was clearly a labor of love, and an all-transistor HP freque...
Jun 16, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 5Ep. 223
Editor in Chief Elliot Williams is spending the week communing with nature, which under normal circumstances would mean no podcast -- after all, he's the one who puts each episode together. But since your weekend would obviously be ruined without a dose of lo-fi Hackaday beats to kick things off, Managing Editor Tom Nardi made a valiant attempt to go it alone and produce...something. This shortened episode will briefly go over the news, including updates about Hackaday's various ongoing contests...
Jun 09, 2023•36 min•Season 5Ep. 222
ditors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi are back in the (virtual) podcast studio to talk the latest phase of the 2023 Hackaday Prize, the past, present, and future of single-board computers, and a modern reincarnation of the Blackberry designed by hardware hackers. They'll also cover the current state of toothbrush NFC hacking, the possibilities of electric farm equipment, and a privately funded satellite designed to sniff out methane. Stick around till the end to find out if there really is such a...
Jun 02, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 5Ep. 221
You can join Elliot and Al as they get together to talk about their favorite hacks of the week. There's news about current contests, fake alien messages, flexible breadboards, hoverboards, low-tech home automation, and even radioactive batteries that could be a device's best friend. We have a winner in the What's that Sound competition last week, which was, apparently, a tough one. You'll also hear about IC fabrication, FPGAs, and core memory. Lots to talk about, including core memory, hoverboar...
May 26, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 220
Elliot and Dan teamed up for the podcast this week, bringing you the week's sweetest hacks. And news too, as the ESA performed a little percussive maintenance on a Jupiter-bound space probe, and we learned about how to get an Orwellian free TV that exacts quite a price. We talked about Bitcoin mining two ways, including a way to put all that waste heat to good use -- just don't expect it to make good financial sense. Why would you stuff zip ties into a hot glue gun? It might just help with plast...
May 19, 2023•59 min•Season 5Ep. 219
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos have much in the way of Hackaday news -- the Op Amp Challenge is about halfway over, and there are roughly three weeks left in the Assistive Tech challenge of the 2023 Hackaday Prize. Show us what you've got on the analog front, and then see what you can do to help people with disabilities to live better lives! Kristina is still striking out on What's That Sound, which this week honestly sounded much more horrendous and mechanical tha...
May 12, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 218
Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi definitely didn't plan on devoting most of this episode to 3D printing and space stories, but let's be honest, it was bound to happen sooner or later. After an update on the Hackaday Prize, the discussion moves on to a pair of troubled spacecraft and the challenges of exploring the final frontier. From there you'll hear about a chocolate 3D printer we've had our eyes on for years, the tools you should have next to your own (non-chocolate) 3D printer...
May 05, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 5Ep. 217
In this week's podcast, non-brothers Elliot Williams and Al Williams talk about our favorite hacks of the week. Elliot's got analog on the brain, courtesy of the ongoing Op Amp Contest, and Al is all about the retrocomputers, from a thrift-store treasure to an old, but still incredibly serviceable, voice synthesizer. Both agree that they love clever uses of mechanical parts and that nobody should fear the FET. Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you...
Apr 28, 2023•48 min•Season 5Ep. 216
It's podcast time again, and this time around Elliot and Dan took a grand tour through the week's best and brightest hacks. We checked out an old-school analog cell phone that went digital with style, dug into a washing machine's API, and figured out how to melt metal in the microwave -- the right way. Does coffee taste better when it's made by a robot? Of course it does! Can you get a chatbot to spill its guts? You can, if you know how to sweet talk it. Let's play Asteroids on an analog oscillo...
Apr 21, 2023•59 min•Season 5Ep. 215
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Contributor Emeritus Kristina Panos gushed about all the best hacks of the previous week. But first, a contest! That's right -- hot on the heels of the Low Power Challenge comes the Op Amp Challenge, sponsored by Digi-Key. You have between now and June 6th to dip your toes into the warm waters of analog and show us what you've got. Will it be a musical hack? Will you seek high analog precision? We can't wait to see. Kristina definitely did not get W...
Apr 14, 2023•47 min•Season 3Ep. 214
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they review some of their favorite hacks and projects of the past week. The episode starts with a discussion about the recently announced Artemis II crew, and how their mission compares to the Apollo program of the 1960s and 70s. From there, the pair theorize as to why Amazon's family of Echo devices have managed to evade eager hardware hackers, take a look at a very impressive SMD soldering jig created with some fascinating OpenSCAD code, m...
Apr 07, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 5Ep. 213
It was quite the cornucopia of goodness this week as Elliot and Dan sat down to hash over the week in hardware hacking. We started with the exciting news that the Hackaday Prize is back -- already? -- for the tenth year running! The first round, Re-Engineering Education, is underway now, and we're already seeing some cool entries come in. The Prize was announced at Hackday Berlin, about which Elliot waxed a bit too. Speaking of wax, if you're looking to waterproof your circuits, that's just one ...
Mar 31, 2023•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 212
