Author Archives: Fernando Gomes

Visit Tapigami Tape City, Where Tape Is The Fabric Of Society

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

With so many cool things going on at Bay Area Maker Faire, it takes something special to stand out from the crowd. Covering several hundred square feet of floor and wall with creations made of tape would do the trick. Welcome to Tapigami Tape City, a traveling art exhibit by [Danny Scheible].

Many of us used construction paper, glue, and tape to express our creativity in our youth. Tapigami’s minimalism drops the paper and glue, practitioners of the art stick to tape. It is an accessible everyday material so there is no barrier to entry to start having fun. And …read more

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Posted in bamf, Bay Area maker faire, bay area maker faire 2018, duct tape, maker faire, misc hacks, packaging tape, sticky tape, tape | Leave a comment

People with Dementia can DRESS Smarter

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

People with dementia have trouble with some of the things we take for granted, including dressing themselves. It can be a remarkably difficult task involving skills like balance, pattern recognition inside of other patterns, ordering, gross motor skill, and dexterity to name a few. Just because something is common, doesn’t mean it is easy. The good folks at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, Arizona State University, and MGH Institute of Health Professions talked with a caregiver focus group to find a way for patients to regain their privacy and replace frustration with independence.

Although this is in the context …read more

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Posted in Alzheimer disease, computer-assisted, digital cameras hacks, disorders, dresser, image processing, matrix code, Medical hacks, neurocognitive, ocr, smart home, Tablet Hacks, wearable hacks | Leave a comment

Motorized Stage Finesses the Microscopic World

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

No matter how fine your fine motor skills may be, it’s really hard to manipulate anything on the stage of a microscope with any kind of accuracy. One jitter or caffeine-induced tremor means the feature of interest on the sample you’re looking at shoots off out of the field of view, and getting back to where you were is a tedious matter of trial and error.

Mechanical help on the microscope stage is nice, and electromechanical help is even better, but a DIY fully motorized microscope stage with complete motion control is the way to go for the serious microscopist …read more

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Posted in Joystick, microscope, microscopy, microstepping, misc hacks, NEMA-8, optical, positioning, stage, stepper, X-Y | Leave a comment

One-key Keyboard is Exercise in Sub-millimeter Design

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

As [Glen] describes it, the only real goal in his decision to design his single-key USB keyboard was to see how small he could build a functional keyboard using a Cherry MX key switch, and every fraction of a millimeter counted. Making a one-key USB keyboard is one thing, but making it from scratch complete with form-fitting enclosure that’s easy to assemble required careful design, and luckily for all of us, [Glen] has documented it wonderfully. (Incidentally, Cherry MX switches come in a variety of qualities and features, the different models being identified by their color. [Glen] is using a …read more

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Posted in 3d printed, cherry mx, eagle, enclosure, how-to, Microcontrollers, nylon, pcb, PIC16f1459, sls, usb keyboard | Leave a comment

Parallel Programming for FPGAs

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

One of the best features of using FPGAs for a design is the inherent parallelism. Sure, you can write software to take advantage of multiple CPUs. But with an FPGA you can enjoy massive parallelism since all the pieces are just hardware. Every light switch in your house operates in parallel with the others. There’s a new edition of a book, titled Parallel Programming for FPGAs that explores that topic in depth and it is under the Creative Commons license. In particular, the book focuses on using Vivado HLS instead of the more traditional Verilog or VHDL.

HLS allows a …read more

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Posted in FPGA, hls | Leave a comment

Tiny Transmitter Brings Out the Spy Inside You

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

When it comes to surveillance, why let the government have all the fun? This tiny spy transmitter is just the thing you need to jumpstart your recreational espionage efforts.

We kid, of course — you’ll want to stay within the law of the land if you choose to build [TomTechTod]’s diminutive transmitter. Barely bigger than the 337 button cell that powers it, the scrap of PCB packs a fair number of surface mount components, most in 0201 packages. Even so, the transmitter is a simple design, with a two transistor audio stage amplifying the signal from the MEMS microphone and …read more

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Posted in bug, espionage, MEMS microphones, oscillator, radio hacks, resonator, saw, spy, surface acoustic wave, transmitter | Leave a comment

Autonomous Agribots For Agriculture

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

For his Hackaday Prize entry, [TegwynTwmffat] is going all-in on autonomous robotics. No, it’s not a self-driving car with highly advanced features such as cruise control with lane-keeping. This is an autonomous robot that’s capable of driving itself. It’s a robot built for agriculture, and relative to other autonomous robotics projects, this one is huge. It’s the size of a small tractor.

The goal [Tegwyn]’s project is to build a robot capable of roving fields of crops to weed, harvest, and possibly fertilize the land. This is a superset of the autonomous car problem: not only does [Tegwyn] need …read more

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Posted in 2018 Hackaday Prize, farm, gardening, robot, The Hackaday Prize | Leave a comment

InSight Brings New Tech to Mars

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Unless you’ve got your ear on the launch pad so to speak, you might not be aware that humanity just launched a new envoy towards the Red Planet. Estimated to touch down in Elysium Planitia on November 26th, the InSight lander is relatively low-key as far as interplanetary missions go. Part of the NASA’s “Discovery Program”, it operates on a considerably lower budget than Flagship missions such as the Curiosity rover; meaning niceties like a big advertising and social media campaign to get the public excited doesn’t get a line item.

Which is a shame, because not only are there …read more

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Posted in cubesat, Current Events, Hackaday Columns, InSight, jpl, mars, nasa, phoenix, space | Leave a comment

LayerOne InfoSec Conference Returns Next Weekend

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

This year’s LayerOne conference is May 25-27 in Los Angeles and Hackaday will be there! Hurry and get your ticket now as today is the last day for pre-registration.

As the InfoSec community takes over the Pasadena Hilton next weekend you’ll wish you had a week instead of just three days to take part in all that is offered. There are organized talks and workshops on pen testing, being the bad guy, and DevOps Security. Learn or improve on your lockpicking skills in the Lockpicking Village. The conference hardware badge will be hacking in every direction in the Hardware Village, …read more

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Posted in conference, cons, demo party, demoscene, demoscene board, InfoSec, layerone | Leave a comment

Arduino Just Introduced an FPGA Board, Announces Debugging and Better Software

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

Today ahead of the Bay Area Maker Faire, Arduino has announced a bevy of new boards that bring modern features and modern chips to the Arduino ecosystem.

Most ambitious of these new offerings is a board that combines a fast ARM microcontroller, WiFi, Bluetooth, and an FPGA. All this is wrapped in a package that provides Mini HDMI out and pins for a PCIe-Express slot. They’re calling it the Arduino MKR Vidor 4000.

Bringing an FPGA to the Arduino ecosystem is on the list of the most interesting advances in DIY electronics in recent memory, and there’s a lot to …read more

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Posted in arduino, Arduino Hacks, Arduino Uno, Arduino Vidor, ESP32, Featured, FPGA, MKR, MKR1010, MKR1500, news, u-blox | Leave a comment