Twas the week before Christmas when Elliot and Dan sat down to unwrap a pre-holiday bundle of hacks. We kicked things off in a seasonally appropriate way with a PCB Christmas card that harvests power from your microwave or WiFi router, plus has the potential to be a spy tool. We learned how to grow big, beautiful crystals quickly, just in case you need some baubles for the tree or a nice pair of earrings. Speaking of last-minute gifts, perhaps you could build a packable dipole antenna, a very du...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 6Ep. 231
This week on the big 300th episode, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos teamed up to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. So basically, business as usual. First up in the news: it's time for the Hackaday Europe 2025 call for proposals! Do you have a tale of hardware, firmware, or software that must be shared with the Hackaday crowd? Then this is your chance to regale us with a 20- or 40-minute talk. You know we love to he...
Dec 13, 2024•49 min•Season 6Ep. 300
On this episode of the Hackaday Podcast, Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi talk about the optical witchcraft behind holograms, the finer points of designing 3D printable threads, and the challenges of switching your local network over to IPv6. They'll also cover how a clever software patch improves the graphics in a flight simulator from the 1990s, and why spacecraft flying into orbit powered by the SABRE engine is going to remain a dream for now. From there you'll hear about a reproduction ...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 6Ep. 300
This week's Hackaday podcast has a European feel, as Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for a look at the week's happenings in the world of cool hardware hacks. Starting with the week's news, those Redbox vending machines continue to capture the attention of hackers everywhere, and in the race to snag one before they're carted off for recycling someone has provided the missing hardware manual in the form of a wiki. Europeans can only look on wistfully. Then there's the curious case of life ...
Nov 29, 2024•52 min•Season 6Ep. 298
This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: Elliot was at Electronica and spotted a wild Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 . And just as excitingly, FreeCAD has finally reached version 1.0 , which means it's stable and ready for real work. Kristina is getting tired of losing at What's That Sound, so she'll have to come up with some t...
Nov 22, 2024•43 min•Season 6Ep. 297
In this episode you'll get to hear not one, not two, but three Hackaday Editors! Now that the dust has mostly settled from the 2024 Hackaday Supercon, Al Williams joins Elliot and Tom to compare notes and pick out a few highlights from the event. But before that, the week's discussion will cover the questionable patents holding back a promising feature for desktop 3D printers, a new digital book from NODE, and the surprisingly limited history of welding in space. You'll also hear about the chall...
Nov 15, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 6Ep. 296
With Superconference 2024 in the books, Dan joined Elliot, fresh off his flight back from Pasadena, to look through the week (or two) in hacks. It was a pretty good crop, too, despite all the distractions and diversions. We checked out the cutest little quadruped, a wireless antenna for wireless communications, a price-tag stand-in for paper calendars, and a neat way to test hardware and software together. We take the closest look yet at why Arecibo collapsed, talk about Voyager's recent channel...
Nov 08, 2024•55 min•Season 6Ep. 295
With the 2024 Hackaday Supercon looming large on the horizon, Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this episode off by talking about this year's badge and its focus on modular add-ons. From there they'll go over the results of a particularly challenging installment of What's that Sound? , discuss a promising DIY lathe that utilizes 3D printed parts filled with concrete, and ponder what the implosion of Redbox means for all of their disc-dispensing machines that are still out in the wild. ...
Oct 25, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 6Ep. 294
This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: we've extended the 2024 Supercon Add-On contest by a week! That's right, whether you were held up by Chinese fall holidays or not, here's your chance to get in on this action. We love to see the add-ons people make for the badge every year, so this time around we're really embracing th...
Oct 18, 2024•47 min•Season 6Ep. 293
Here we are in October, improbably enough, and while the leaves start to fall as the goblins begin to gather, Elliot and Dan took a break from the madness to talk about all the wonderful hacks that graced our pages this week. If there was a theme this week, it was long-term projects, like the multiple years one hacker spent going down dead ends in the quest for DIY metal 3D printing. Not to be outdone, another hacker spent seven years building a mirrorless digital camera that looks like a commer...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 292
What have you missed on Hackaday this week? Elliot Williams and Al Williams compare notes on their favorites from the week, and you are invited. The guys may have said too much about the Supercon badge this year -- listen in for a few hints about what it will be about. For hacks, you'll hear about scanning tunneling microscopes, power management for small Linux systems, and lots of inertial measurement units. The guys talked about a few impossible hacks for consumer electronics, from hacking a l...
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 6Ep. 291
This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off by acknowledging an incredible milestone: 20 years of Hackaday! Well, probably. When a website gets to be this old, it's a little hard to nail down when exactly things kicked off, but it seems like September of 2004 is about right. They'll also go over the latest updates for the fast-approaching Hackaday Supercon, and announce the winner of another tough What's That Sound challenge. From there, the conversation makes its...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 6Ep. 290
This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: we've announced the 2024 Tiny Games Contest winners! We asked you to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM, and you did so in spades. Congratulations to all the winners and Honorable Mentions, and thanks to DigiKey, Supplyframe, and all ...
Sep 20, 2024•40 min•Season 6Ep. 289
It's Friday the 13th, and despite having to dodge black cats and poorly located ladders, Elliot and Dan were able to get together and run down the best hacks of the first week of September. Our luck was pretty good, too, seeing how we stumbled upon a coffee table that walks your drink over to you on Strandbeest legs, a potato that takes passable photographs, and a cool LED display three times better than a boring old seven-segment. If you've never heard of the Voynich manuscript, you're in luck ...
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 288
Elliot Williams is back from vacation, and he and Al Williams got together to talk about the best Hackaday posts from the last week. Of course, the Raspberry Pi RP2350 problem generated a bit of discussion. On a lighter note, they saw laser lawn care, rooting WiFi devices, and some very black material made from wood. Need more current-sinking capability from a 555? They talked about that, too, along with a keyboard you use with your feet. The guys had a lot to say about Klipper, why you might wa...
Sep 06, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 6Ep. 287
Even when the boss is away, the show must go on, so Dan slid back behind the guest mic and teamed up with Tom to hunt down the freshest of this week's hacks. It was a bit of a chore, with a couple of computer crashes and some side-quests down a few weird rabbit holes, but we managed to get things together in the end. Tune in and you'll hear us bemoan HOAs and celebrate one ham's endless battle to outwit them, no matter what the golf cart people say about his antennas. Are you ready to say goodby...
Aug 30, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 6Ep. 286
This week on the Podcast, we have something a little different for you. Elliot is on vacation, so Tom was in charge of running the show and he had Kristina in the hot seat. First up in the news: the 2024 Tiny Games Challenge is still underway and has drawn an impressive 44 entries as of this writing. You have until 9AM PDT on September 10th to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which Tom and Kristina came up...
Aug 23, 2024•53 min•Season 6Ep. 285
The summer doldrums are here, but that doesn't mean that Elliot and Dan couldn't sift through the week's hack and find the real gems. It was an audio-rich week, with a nifty microsynth, music bounced off the moon, and everything you always wanted to know about Raspberry Pi audio but were afraid to ask. We looked into the mysteries of waveguides and found a math-free way to understand how they work, and looked at the way Mecanum wheels work in the most soothing way possible. We also each locked i...
Aug 16, 2024•59 min•Season 6Ep. 284
Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams reflect on the fact that, as humans, we have--at most--two eyes and no warp drives. While hacking might not be the world's most dangerous hobby, you do get to work with dangerous voltages, temperatures, and frickin' lasers. Light features prominently, as the guys talk about LED data interfaces, and detecting faster-than-light travel. There's also a USB sniffer, abusing hot glue, and some nostalgia topics ranging from CRT graphics to Apollo worksta...
Aug 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 6Ep. 283
In this episode, the CrowdStrike fiasco has Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi pondering the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From there the discussion moves on to robotic sailboats, the evolving state of bespoke computers, and the unique capabilities of the Super Nintendo cartridge. You'll also hear about cleaning paintings with lasers, the advantages of electronic word processors, stacking 3D printed parts, and the joys of a nice data visualization. They'll wrap the episode ...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 6Ep. 282
This week on the Podcast, it's Kristina's turn to bloviate alongside Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: our fresh new contest has drawn three entries already! That's right, the 2024 Tiny Games Challenge is underway . You have until September 10th to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which sounded familiar to Kristina, but she couldn't place it. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can ...
Jul 26, 2024•39 min•Season 6Ep. 281
Despite the summer doldrums, it was another big week in the hacking world, and Elliot sat down with Dan for a rundown. Come along for the ride as Dan betrays his total ignorance of soccer/football, much to Elliot's amusement. But it's all about keeping the human factor in sports, so we suppose it was worth it. Less controversially, we ogled over a display of PCB repair heroics, analyzed a reverse engineering effort that got really lucky, and took a look at an adorable one-transistor ham transcei...
Jul 19, 2024•55 min•Season 6Ep. 280
Get your weekly fix of great hacks with your guides, Elliot Williams and Al Williams. This week, the guys talk about hacking airline WiFi, vanishing cloud services, and hobbies adjacent to hacking, such as general aviation. Things go into the weird and wonderful when the topic turns to cavity filters, driving LEDs with a candle, and thermite. Quick hacks? Everything from vintage automated telescopes to home fusion reactors and ham radio mobile from a bicycle. Then there's the can't miss articles...
Jul 12, 2024•51 min•Season 6Ep. 279
In this episode, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi kick things off with a reminder about the impending deadline for Supercon talk and workshop proposals. From there discussion moves on to the absolutely incredible tale of two brothers who solved a pair of missing person cases with their homebrew underwater vehicle, false data sneaking into OctoPrint's usage statics, and an organic input device that could give the classic mouse a run for its money. You'll also hear about cheap radar ...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 6Ep. 278
This week on the Podcast, it's Kristina's turn to ramble on alongside Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum + Labs is being liquidated at auction after just 12 years of being open to the public. In Hackaday news, the 2024 Business Card Challenge ends next Tuesday, July 2nd, so this is your weekend to shine! Also, you've got about two weeks to get your talk proposals in for this year's Supercon . (Can you believe it's only four months away?) T...
Jun 28, 2024•47 min•Season 6Ep. 277
The week gone by was rich with fun hacks, and Elliot and Dan teamed up this time around to run them down for everyone. The focus this week seemed to trend to old hardware, from the recently revived Voyager 1 to a 1940s car radio, a homebrew instrument from 1979, a paper tape reader, and a 128k Mac emulator built from an RP2040. Newer hacks include a 3D-printed bottle labeler, a very hackable smart ring, and lessons learned about programming robots. We also took a look at turning old cell phones ...
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 276
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi for a review of the best stories to grace the front page of Hackaday this week. Things kick off with the news about Raspberry Pi going public, and what that might mean for everyone's favorite single-board computer. From there they'll cover the technology behind communicating through mud, DIY pressure vessels, pushing the 1983 TRS-80 Model 100 to its limits, and the reality of 3D printing how that the hype has subsided. You'll also hear about mo...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 6Ep. 275
What do capstans, direct conversion receivers, and fracking have in common? They were all topics Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams found fascinating this week. If you wonder what makes an electrical ground a ground, or what a theodolite is, you should check it out. Al struck on on the What's That Sound, but [Ferric Bueler] didn't so he scores a highly-coveted Hackaday Podcast T-Shirt. Want one? Tune in next week for your chance. This week, the hacks came fast and furious. Capstans...
Jun 07, 2024•51 min•Season 6Ep. 274
This week, it was Kristina's turn in the hot seat with Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: Germany's solar expansion and a lot of wind have resulted in excess energy, which some people think is bad. In Hackaday news, the entries in the 2024 Business Card Challenge are really stacking up. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which Kristina provided this week and managed to stump Elliot. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and...
May 31, 2024•42 min•Season 6Ep. 273
With Elliot off on vacation, Tom and Dan made a valiant effort to avoid the dreaded "clip show" and provide you with the tastiest hacker treats of the week. Did they succeed? That's not for us to say, but if you're interested in things like non-emulated N64 games and unnecessarily cool filament sensors, this just might be one to check out. We also came across a noise suppressor for a leaf blower, giant antennae dangling from government helicopters, and a desktop-friendly wire EDM setup that just...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 272
