Kritik sah

Cars (including LEGO ones) will roll downhill. In theory if the hill were a treadmill, the car could roll forever. In practice, there are a lot of things waiting to go wrong to keep this from happening. If you’ve ever wondered what those problems would be and what a solution would look like, [Brick Technology] has a nine-minute video showing the whole journey . The video showcases an iterative process of testing, surfacing a problem, redesigning to address that problem, and then back to testing. It starts off pretty innocently with increasing wheel friction and adding weight, but we’ll tell you right now it goes in some unexpected directions that show off [Brick Technology]’s skill and confidence when it comes to LEGO assemblies. You can watch the whole thing unfold in the video, embedded below. It’s fun to see how the different builds perform, and we can’t help but think that the icing on the cake would be LEGO bricks with OLED screens and working instrumentation built into them...

The general consensus among us mammals is that if we get very cold, we die. Within the world of nematodes, however, they’d like to differ on that viewpoint. This is demonstrated succinctly after researchers coaxed a batch of these worms back into action after they had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for an estimated 46,000 years. The mechanism underlying this phenomenon is called cryptobiosis , which is essentially a metabolic state that certain lifeforms can enter when environmental conditions become unsuitable. In the case of nematodes , they hold a number of records, with a group of them having survived the STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 when it broke up during reentry, making it the first known lifeform to have achieved such a feat. During arctic experiments it was found that these roundworms can withstand intracellular freezing even while active depending on its diet. General morphology of P. kolymaensis, female. (Credit: Anastasia Shatilovich et al., 2023) For ...

The 433 MHz spectrum is a little bit of an oddball. It’s one of the few areas of the radio spectrum which is nearly universally unlicensed, meaning as long as devices using it adhere to the power restrictions and other guidelines about best practices, it’s essentially an open playground. IoT devices operate here, as well as security systems and, of course, remote controls. And, using a few off-the-shelf parts [hesam.moshiri] shows us how to take advantage of this piece of spectrum by designing and building a programmable and versatile 4-channel 433 MHz remote control . Built around an ATmega8 microcontroller, making it easy to work with Arduino sketches, and with a 2×8 character LCD for ease-of-use when not connected to a computer, the wireless switching device can store up to 80 remote control codes in its EEPROM memory. This was one of the harder parts for [hesam] to sort out, but using structures to store the data for the codes eventually solved the problems. A simple GUI makes us...

Anybody who has set up a satellite TV antenna will tell you that alignment is critical when picking up a signal from space. With a satellite dish it’s a straightforward task to tweak the position, but what happens if the dish in question is out beyond the edge of the Solar System? We told you a few days ago about this exact issue currently facing Voyager 2 , but we’re guessing Hackaday readers will want to know a little bit more about how a 50+ year old spacecraft so far from home can still sort out its antenna. The answer lies in NASA Technical Report 32-1559, Digital Canopus Tracker from 1972, which describes the instrument that notes the position of the star Canopus , which along with that of the Sun it can use to calculate the antenna bearing to reach Earth. The report makes for fascinating reading, as it describes how early-1970s technology was used to spot the star by its specific intensity and then keep it in its sights. It’s an extremely accessible design, as even the part n...

Living in a place where the electric service isn’t particularly reliable can be frustrating, whether that’s because of a lack of infrastructure, frequent storms, or rolling blackouts. An option for those living in these situations is a backup generator, often turned on and connected by an automatic transfer switch. These are necessary safety devices too; they keep power lines from being back-fed by the generators. But there are other reasons to use transfer switches as well as [Maarten] shows us with this automatic transfer switch meant to keep his computers and Internet powered up. The device is fairly straightforward. A dual-pole, dual-throw relay is housed inside of an electrical junction box with two electrical plugs, each of which can be connected to a different circuit or power source in [Maarten]’s house. The relay coil is energized by the primary power supply, and when that power is lost the relay automatically changes over to the other power supply, which might be something...

In the long and winding history of BASIC, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the different variants and dialect. Some may still remember TinyBASIC, which was published in 1976 as Palo Alto Tiny BASIC by [Gordon Brandly]. Later, TinyBASIC was modified by a number of people including [Scott Lawrence] who created TinyBASIC Plus (TBP). Inspired by this, [Karl] figured he could improve on TBP by making the original C-based project even easier to port by removing whatever platform dependencies he could find, creating what he calls TinyBasicLike . The main change is that TinyBasicLike consists out of two C files, with one containing the core code, and the second the platform-specific details that can be used by the core. Although [Karl] started off with the Palo Alto Tiny BASIC-like code by [Scott Lawrence] , he decided to make it into his own by making a few alterations, such as adding left and right shift operators, adding an ADDR() function, expanding the features of INPUT and ad...

When looking for electronics projects to use in educational settings, there is no shortage of simple, lightweight, and easily-accessible systems to choose from. From robotic arms, drones, walking robots, and wheeled robots, there is a vast array of options. But as technology marches on, the robotics platforms need to keep up as well. This turtle-style wheeled robot called the Trundlebot uses the latest in affordable microcontrollers on a relatively simple, expandable platform for the most up-to-date educational experience. The robot is built around a Raspberry Pi Pico, with two low-cost stepper motors to drive the wheeled platform. The chassis can be built out of any material that can be cut in a laser cutter, but for anyone without this sort of tool it is also fairly easy to cut the shapes out by hand. The robot’s functionality can be controlled through Python code, and it is compatible with the WizFi360-EVB-Pico which allows it to be remote controlled through a web application. Th...

The original circuit simulation software, called the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis, or SPICE as it is more commonly known, was originally developed at the University of Califorina Berkeley in the 1970s with an open-source license. That’s the reason for the vast versions of SPICE available now decades after the original was released, not all of which are as open or free as we might like. LTspice is a popular choice but as far as a truly free and open-source circuit simulator goes you might want to try out QucsStudio . Qucs, or Quite Universal Circuit Simulator, is the underpinnings of the circuit simulation software, with QucsStudio providing the GUI layer for ease of use. QucsStudio supports a wide range of circuit components and models much in the same fashion as other more popular SPICE programs, including semiconductor devices, passive components, and digital logic gates. Qucs also utilizes SPICE-based simulation, which can model various types of circuit beha...

A couple of weeks ago, we noted with interest that the space shuttle Endeavour (OV85) would be set up as a full-stack launch configuration display, complete with external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. We predicted that this would result in some interesting engineering, not least of which will be making the entire 20-story stack safe from seismic activity. Looks like we were right on all counts, with this story about the foundation upon which the display will stand, which has been under construction for quite a while now. The base has six seismic isolators that support the 2.4-m thick slab of reinforced concrete that will serve as a perch for the full stack. The 1,800-ton slab will be able to move a meter or so from its resting position during earthquakes. Or perhaps more accurately, the foundation will allow Los Angeles to move as much as it wants while Endeavour rides it out. If like us you’re worried that seismic loads are vastly different than the loads the spacecraft w...

Extending the wiring for the AC unit’s controller board (Credit: HowToLou) Although air conditioning units are generally subdivided into a number of categories, including window, split and whole house/building units, they still work the same, with the compressor, condenser and expansion stages. In the case of widely available window AC units you can indeed use them as designed in a window, or as [Lou] is in the process of demonstrating , as a whole-house AC unit. The main thing to keep an eye out for here is the rated capacity of the window AC unit (in British Thermal Units, square meters/feet). In this case [Lou] used a pretty beefy $600, 24,000 BTU window unit that should be good for about 1200 sqf (~111 m 2 ) . Most of the modifications are pretty straightforward, with the control board needing to have its wiring extended, as well as the AC unit’s air intake and exhaust on the indoors side. The unit is then placed outside on a stable foundation and inserted into a suitably size...

Large language models (LLMs) have been all the rage lately, assisting from all kinds of tasks from programming to devising Excel formulas to shortcutting school work. They’re also relatively easy to access for the most part, but as the old saying goes, if something on the Internet is free the real product is you (and your data). Luckily there are ways of hosting LLMs on your own to avoid your personal data getting harvested, as well as taking advantage of open-source solutions, but building these systems takes a little bit of effort. [Stephen] and a team from Mozilla walk us through this process and show us a number of options currently available . Working from the ground up, the group first decides on hosting, which (unsurprisingly) involves using Mozilla hosting services. The choice of runtime environment was a little bit more challenging. The project was time constrained, so they looked at two options here: Hugging Face and llama.cpp. Eventually deciding to move forward with llama...

Unless you were lucky enough to be able to afford a floppy disk drive, you probably used cassette tapes to store programs and data if you used pretty much any home computer in the 1980s. ZX Spectrum users, however, had another option in the form of the Microdrive. This was a rather unusual continuous-loop mini-tape cartridge that could store around 100 kB and load it at lightning speed, all at a much lower price point than a floppy drive. The low price came at the cost of poor durability however, and after four decades it’s becoming harder and harder to find cartridges that work reliably. [Derek Fountain] therefore set out to make a modern Microdrive emulator that stores data on SD cards . Several projects already exist to replace Microdrives, but they typically also need the ZX Interface 1, a serial/network expansion module that’s becoming equally hard to find. Hence [Derek]’s choice to make his emulator a completely standalone system that directly plugs into the Spectrum’s expansio...

Illustration from Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site. http://cnx.org/content/col11496/1.6/ , Jun 19, 2013. What makes a body’s organs into what they are is more than just a grouping of specialized cells. They also need to be oriented and attached to each other and scaffolding in order to create structures which can effectively perform the desired function. A good example here is the heart, which requires a large number of muscle cells to contract in unison in order for the heart component (like a ventricle) to effectively pump blood. This complication is what has so far complicated efforts to 3D print complex tissues and entire organs, but recently researchers have demonstrated a way to 3D print heart muscle which can contract when stimulated similarly to a human heart’s ventricle. At the center of this technique lies a hydrogel that is infused with gelatin fibers. Using a previously developed Rotary Jet-Spinning technology that was reported on in 2016 , a sheet of spu...

Want a better way to feed solder, but want to do it on the quick and cheap? Well [ptkrf] has a solution for you in an old instructables post we stumbled upon recently . You might have, or can inexpensively buy, a mechanical pencil which has the feeder button on the side rather than on top, as usual. With the pencil in hand, [ptkrf] shows you the simple procedure for modifying the pencil into a solder feeder. You might need to experiment with different size pencils and solders to get a perfect match. Common mechanical pencils come in sizes to accommodate 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 mm leads, but there are bigger and smaller ones available. Perhaps one of those really large drafting lead holders could be repurposed as a solder dispenser for the bigger jobs. We discussed a 3D printed solder feeder a few days ago, but if you don’t have oner, this may be a good way to go. Thanks to [iliis] for sending in this tip. from Blog – Hackaday https://ift.tt/FMlC26D

In most cases, cutting pin headers is a pretty simple job to tackle with a pair of cutters or even your bare fingers. But if you’re doing a lot of it, like for kitting up lots of projects for customers, then you might want to look at something like this automatic pin header cutter . Even if you don’t need to follow [Mr. Innovative]’s lead on this, it’s worth taking a look at the video below, which has a couple of cool ideas that are probably applicable to other automation projects, especially those where lots of small parts are handled. Processing begins with a hopper that holds a stack of header strips over what we’d call a “reverse guillotine,” consisting of a spring-loaded plunger riding on a cam. A header strip is pushed out of the hopper to expose the specified number of terminals, the cam rotates and raises the plunger, and the correct length header is snapped off. For our money, the neatest part of this build is the feed mechanism for the hopper. Rather than anything complica...

Dan Maloney wanted to design a part for 3D printing. OpenSCAD is a coding language for generating 3D objects. ChatGPT can write code. What could possibly go wrong? You should go read his article because it’s enlightening and hilarious , but the punchline is that it ran afoul of syntax errors, but also gave him enough of a foothold that he could teach himself enough OpenSCAD to get the project done anyway. As with many people who have asked the AI to create some code, Dan finds that it’s not as good as asking someone who knows what they’re doing, but that it’s also better than nothing . And this is where I start grumbling. When you type your desires into the word-follower machine, your alternative isn’t nothing . Your alternative is to fire up a search engine instead and type “openscad tutorial”. That, for nearly any human endeavor, will get you a few good guides, written by humans who are probably expert in the subject in question, and which are aimed at teaching you the thing that y...

We all know the Nintendo Game Boy camera peripheral, and we’ve seen plenty of hacks for it on these pages over the years. We like [Raphael Boichot]’s camera then , as instead of including a Game Boy or emulating one, it talks directly to the sensor from an RP2040. The result is a standalone camera with slightly better quality than the original, and with near-limitless storage and easy retrieval of pictures. For us the interesting revelation from this project comes in the light it sheds on the sensor module, the Mitsubishi M64282FP, but it’s no slouch as a camera beside that. There are motion sensor and timelapse modes, as well the ability to take high dynamic range pictures, and as if that’s not enough it also has all the tweakable things you’d expect from a “proper” camera. The oldest adage in photography is that the best camera in the world is the one in your hand, and we’d say that this one’s better than a real Game Boy Camera should the once-in-a-lifetime picture come while you’r...

Back in the 486 days, it was common to see a “Turbo” button on the front panel of many PCs, which was used to toggle between the CPU’s maximum speed and a slower clock rate that was sometimes necessary for compatibility with older software. Usually an LED would light up to show you were running at this higher speed, or if you’re machine was very fancy, it might even have a numerical display that would show the current CPU frequency. [Joshua Woehlke] wanted to add a similar display to his 486, but figured that with modern technology, he could do something a bit more interesting . Especially when he realized that the spot on his case where the two-digit LED display would have originally been mounted was the perfect size to hold a common 0.96″ SSD1306 OLED. From there it was just a matter of wiring it up to an Arduino and writing some code to display different graphics depending on the computer’s current CPU speed. Just like the frequency indicators of yore, the Arduino doesn’t actuall...

Computer engineer [Marco Cilloni] realized a lot of developers today still have trouble dealing with Unicode in their programs, especially in the C/C++ world. He wrote an excellent guide that summarizes many of the issues surrounding Unicode and its encoding called “ Unicode is harder than you think “. He first presents a brief history of Unicode and how it came about, so you can understand the reasons for the frustrating edge cases you’re bound to encounter. There have been a variety of Unicode encoding methods over the years, but modern programs dealing with strings will probably be using UTF-8 encoding — and you should too. This multibyte encoding scheme has the convenient property of not changing the original character values when dealing with 7-bit ASCII text. We were surprised to read that there is actually an EBCDIC version of UTF still officially on the books today: UTF-EBCDIC, a variable-width encoding that uses 1-byte characters designed for IBM’s EBCDIC systems (note: I...

For those looking to add wireless connectivity to embedded projects or to build IoT devices, there is perhaps no more popular module than the ESP32. A dual-core option exists for processor intensive applications, the built-in WiFi and Bluetooth simplify designs, and it has plenty of I/O, memory, and interoperability for most applications. With so much built into the chip itself, [atomic14] wondered how much support circuitry it really needed and set about building the most minimalist ESP32 development board possible . Starting with the recommended schematic for the ESP32, the most obvious things to remove are a number of the interfacing components like the USB to UART chip and the JTAG interface. The ESP32 has USB capabilities built in, so the data lines from a USB port can be directly soldered to the chip instead of using a go-between. A 3.3V regulator eliminates the need for many of the decoupling capacitors, and the external oscillator support circuitry can also be eliminated when...

One of the great things about 3D printers is their ability to make a single part all at once. Separating a part into multiple pieces is usually done to split up objects that are too big to fit on the 3D printer’s print bed. But [Peter] at Markforged (manufacturers of high-end 3D printers) has a video explaining another reason: multi-part prints can benefit from improved strength . This part can be easily printed as a single piece, but it can be made nearly twice as strong when printed as two, and combined. The idea is this: filament-based 3D printers generally create parts that are strongest along their X-Y axis (relative to their manufacture) and weakest in the Z direction. [Peter] proposes splitting a part into pieces with this in mind. Not because the part is inconveniently large or has tricky geometry, but so the individual pieces can be printed in orientations that provide the best mechanical strength. This is demonstrated with the simple part shown here. The usual way t...