Hackaday Podcast
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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Ep 329: AI Surgery, a Prison Camp Lathe, and a One Hertz Four-Fer
07/18/2025
Ep 329: AI Surgery, a Prison Camp Lathe, and a One Hertz Four-Fer
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they talk about their favorite hacks and stories from the previous week. They'll start things off with a small Supercon update, and go right into fusion reactors, AI surgeons, planned obsolescence, and robotic cats and dogs. They'll also go over several entries from the ongoing 2025 One Hertz Challenge, an ambitious flight simulator restoration project, old school lightning detectors, and how Blu-ray won the battle against HD DVD but lost the war against streaming. Stick around to the end to hear an incredible story about a clandestine machine shop in a WWII prisoner of war camp, and the valiant fight to restore communications with the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft. if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/37456925
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Ep 328: Benchies, Beanies, and Back to the Future
07/11/2025
Ep 328: Benchies, Beanies, and Back to the Future
This week, 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. In Hackaday news, ticks on. You have until Tuesday, August 19th to show us what you've got, so head over to Hackaday.IO and get started now! In other news, we've just wrapped the call for Supercon proposals, so you can probably expect to see tickets for sale fairly soon. On What's That Sound, Kristina actually got this one with some prodding. Congratulations to [$HACKER] who knew exactly what it was and wins a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt! After that, it's on to the hacks and such, beginning with a ridiculously fast Benchy. We take a look at a bunch of awesome 3D prints a PEZ blaster and a cowbell that rings true. Then we explore chisanbop, which is not actually K-Pop for toddlers, as well as a couple of clocks. Finally, we talk a bit about dithering before taking a look at the top tech of 1985 as shown in Back to the Future (1985). Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/37374995
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Ep 327: A Ploopy Knob, Rube-Goldberg Book Scanner, Hard Drives And Power Grids Oscillating Out Of Control
07/03/2025
Ep 327: A Ploopy Knob, Rube-Goldberg Book Scanner, Hard Drives And Power Grids Oscillating Out Of Control
It's Independence Day here in the USA, but if you're not a fan of fireworks and hot dogs, Elliot and Dan's rundown of the best hacks of the week is certainly something to celebrate. Rest easy, because nothing exploded, not even the pneumatic standing desk that [Matthias] tore into, nor the electroplated 3D prints that [H3NDRIK] took a blowtorch to. We both really loved the Ploopiest knob you've ever seen, which would be even Ploopier in anodized aluminum, as well as an automatic book scanner that takes its job very seriously. We looked into the mysteries of the Smith chart, another couple of fantastic student projects out of Cornell, the pros and cons of service loops, and what happened when the lights went out in Spain last Spring. And what does Janet Jackson have against laptops anyway?
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/37271005
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Ep 326: A DIY Pockel Cell, Funny Materials to 3D Print With, and Pwning a Nissan Leaf
06/27/2025
Ep 326: A DIY Pockel Cell, Funny Materials to 3D Print With, and Pwning a Nissan Leaf
Time for another European flavoured Hackaday Podcast this week, as Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List, two writers sweltering in the humidity of a Central European summer. Both of our fans and air conditioners made enough noise to be picked up on the microphone when they were turned on, so we're suffering for your entertainment. The big Hackaday news stories of the week are twofold, firstly , and then the announcement of a fresh competition: . Get your once-a-second projects ready! This week gave us a nice pile of interesting hacks, including some next-level work growing and machining the crystal for a home-made Pockels cell light valve, an pcoming technique for glass 3D prints, and enough vulnerabilities to make any Nissan Leaf owner nervous. We note that mechanical 7-segment displays are an arena showing excellent hacks, and we're here for it. Meanwhile among the quick hacks a filament made of PLA with a PETG core caught Elliot's eye, while Jenny was impressed with a beautifully-made paper tape punch. Finally in the can't miss section, The latest in Dan Maloney's Mining and Refining series looks at drilling and blasting. Such an explosive piece should come last, but wait! There's more! Al Williams gives us a potted history of satellite phones, and explains why you don't carry an Iridium in your pocket.
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Ep 325: The Laugh Track Machine, DIY USB-C Power Cables, and Plastic Punches
06/20/2025
Ep 325: The Laugh Track Machine, DIY USB-C Power Cables, and Plastic Punches
This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Al Williams caught up after a week-long hiatus. There was a lot to talk about, including clocks, DIY USB cables, and more. In Hackaday news, <a href="https://hackaday.io/contest/202866-2025-pet-hacks-challenge">the 2025 Pet Hacks Contest</a> is a wrap. Winners will be announced soon, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, how'd you like a free ticket to attend Supercon? Well, free if you <a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/05/22/hackaday-supercon-2025-call-for-participation-we-want-you/">submit a talk</a> and get accepted. November is right around the corner, so get those talks ready. Hackaday is a big fan of the <a href="https://hackaday.com/2025/06/12/end-of-an-era-noaas-polar-sats-wind-down-operations/">NOAA Polar sats</a>, and it looks like they are on their last figurative legs. The agency has left them up for now, but won't be keeping them in shape, and if they misbehave, they may be neutralized for safety. Since Elliot was off, Al supplied the sound, and in a bout of karma, Elliot had to do the guessing this week. How'd he do? Not bad, but there's room to do better. If you do better, there could be a coveted Hackaday Podcast T-shirt in your future. Moving on the hacks, the guys were interested in magnets, clocks, cables, 3D printed machine tools, and even old moonbase proposals. For the can't miss articles, Al took the bifecta, since Elliot picked a piece on the machine that generated laugh tracks in the latter part of the 20th century and Al shamelessly picked his own article about the role of British ham radio operators during WWII. Miss anything? . As always, drop a comment and tell us what you think about the week in Hackaday.
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Ep 324: Ribbon Microphone From A Gumstick, Texture From a Virtual Log, and a Robot Arm From PVC
06/07/2025
Ep 324: Ribbon Microphone From A Gumstick, Texture From a Virtual Log, and a Robot Arm From PVC
This week, 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. In Hackaday news, rolls on, but only for a short time longer. You have until Tuesday, June 10th to show us what you've got, so head over to Hackaday.IO and get started now! In other news, check out what adaptive optics can do when it comes to capturing pictures of the Sun. In other, other news, there won't be a Podcast next week as Elliot is on vacation. On What's That Sound, Kristina failed once again, but four of you guessed correctly. Congratulations to [ToyoKogyo12aTurbo] who fared better and wins a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt! After that, it's on to the hacks and such, beginning with a largely-printed 6-DOF robot arm. We take a look at a bunch of awesome 3D prints like guitars and skateboards, take a look at some pet hacks, and discuss brick layers in orcaslicer. Finally, we talk a lot about keyboards, especially the quickly-evaporating Blackberry keyboards and why they're disappearing. Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36890505
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Ep 323: Impossible CRT Surgery, Fuel Cells, Stream Gages, and a Love Letter to Microcontrollers
05/30/2025
Ep 323: Impossible CRT Surgery, Fuel Cells, Stream Gages, and a Love Letter to Microcontrollers
Our choice of hacks included a fond look at embedded systems and the classic fashion sense of Cornell's Bruce Land, risky open CRT surgery, a very strange but very cool way to make music, and the ultimate backyard astronomer's observatory. We talked about Stamp collecting for SMD prototyping, crushing aluminum with a boatload of current, a PC that heats your seat, and bringing HDMI to the Commodore 64. We also took a look at flight tracking IRL, a Flipper-based POV, the ultimate internet toaster, and printing SVGs for fun and profit. Finally, we wrapped things up with a look at the tech behind real-time river flow tracking and a peek inside the surprisingly energetic world of fuel cells. !
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36786620
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Ep 323: Impossible CRT Surgery, Fuel Cells, Stream Gages, and a Love Letter to Microcontrollers
05/30/2025
Ep 323: Impossible CRT Surgery, Fuel Cells, Stream Gages, and a Love Letter to Microcontrollers
Our choice of hacks included a fond look at embedded systems and the classic fashion sense of Cornell's Bruce Land, risky open CRT surgery, a very strange but very cool way to make music, and the ultimate backyard astronomer's observatory. We talked about Stamp collecting for SMD prototyping, crushing aluminum with a boatload of current, a PC that heats your seat, and bringing HDMI to the Commodore 64. We also took a look at flight tracking IRL, a Flipper-based POV, the ultimate internet toaster, and printing SVGs for fun and profit. Finally, we wrapped things up with a look at the tech behind real-time river flow tracking and a peek inside the surprisingly energetic world of fuel cells. !
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36786635
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Ep 322: Fake Hackaday Writers, New Retro Computers, and a Web Rant
05/23/2025
Ep 322: Fake Hackaday Writers, New Retro Computers, and a Web Rant
We're back in Europe for this week's Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List. In the news this week is the passing of Ed Smylie, the engineer who devised the famous improvised carbon dioxide filter that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts with duct tape. Closer to home is the announcement of the call for participation for this year's Hackaday Supercon; we know you will have some ideas and projects you'd like to share. Interesting hacks this week include a new Mac Plus motherboard and Doom (just) running on an Atari ST, while a LoRa secure messenger and an astounding open-source Ethernet switch captivated us on the hardware front. We also take a dive into the Mouse programming language, a minimalist stack-based environment from the 1970s. Among the quick hacks are a semiconductor dopant you can safely make at home, and a beautiful Mac Mini based cyberdeck. Finally, we wrap up with our colleague [Maya Posch] making the case for a graceful degradation of web standards, something which is now sadly missing from so much of the online world, and then with the discovery that ChatGPT can make a passable show of emulating a Hackaday scribe. Don't worry folks, we're still reassuringly meat-based.
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Ep 321: Learn You Some 3DP, Let the Wookie Win, or Design a Thinkpad Motherboard Anew
05/16/2025
Ep 321: Learn You Some 3DP, Let the Wookie Win, or Design a Thinkpad Motherboard Anew
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they take a whirlwind tour of the best and brightest hacks of the last week. This episode starts off with an update about that Soviet Venus lander that's been buzzing the planet, then moves on to best practices for designing 3D printed parts, giving Chrome OS devices a new lease on life, and a unique display technology that brings a Star Wars prop to life. You'll also hear about designing new motherboards for beloved old computers, why you might want to put your calipers on a flatbed scanner, and a NASA science satellite that's putting in double duty as a wartime reporter. Finally, they'll cover the interesting physics of meteor burst communications, and the latest developments in the ongoing libogc license carfuffle. if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36595050
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Ep 320: A Lot of Cool 3D Printing, DIY Penicillin, and an Optical Twofer
05/09/2025
Ep 320: A Lot of Cool 3D Printing, DIY Penicillin, and an Optical Twofer
This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up across the universe to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. In Hackaday news, rolls on. You have until June 10th to show us what you've got, so head over to Hackaday.IO and get started today! On What's That Sound, Kristina actually got it this time, although she couldn't quite muster the correct name for it, however at Hackaday we'll be calling it the "glassophone" from now on. Congratulations to [disaster_recovered] who fared better and wins a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt! After that, it's on to the hacks and such, beginning with a complete and completely-documented wireless USB autopsy. We take a look at a lovely 3D-printed downspout, some DIY penicillin, and a jellybean iMac that's hiding a modern PC. Finally, we explore a really cool 3D printing technology, and ask what happened to typing 'www.'. Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, !
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Ep 319: Experimental Archaeology, Demoscene Oscilloscope Music, and Electronic Memories
05/02/2025
Ep 319: Experimental Archaeology, Demoscene Oscilloscope Music, and Electronic Memories
It's the podcast so nice we recorded it twice! Despite some technical difficulties (note to self: press the record button significantly before recording the outro), Elliot and Dan were able to soldier through our rundown of the week's top hacks. We kicked things off with a roundup of virtual keyboards for the alternate reality crowd, which begged the question of why you'd even need such a thing. We also looked at a couple of cool demoscene-adjacent projects, such as the ultimate in oscilloscope music and a hybrid knob/jack for eurorack synth modules. We also dialed the Wayback Machine into antiquity to take a look at Clickspring's take on the origins of precision machining; spoiler alert -- you can make gas-tight concentric brass tubing using a bow-driven lathe. There's a squishy pneumatic robot gripper, an MQTT-enabled random number generator, a feline-friendly digital stethoscope, and a typewriter that'll make you Dymo label maker jealous. We'll also mourn the demise of electronics magazines and ponder how your favorite website fills that gap, and learn why it's really hard to keep open-source software lean and clean. Short answer: because it's made by people.
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36411905
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Ep 318: DIY Record Lathe, 360 Degree LIDAR, and 3D Printing Innovation Lives!
04/25/2025
Ep 318: DIY Record Lathe, 360 Degree LIDAR, and 3D Printing Innovation Lives!
This week Elliot Williams was joined by fellow Europe-based Hackaday staffer Jenny List, to record the Hackaday Podcast as the dusk settled on a damp spring evening. On the agenda first was robotic sport, as a set of bipedal robots competed in a Chinese half-marathon. Our new Robot overlords may have to wait a while before they are fast enough chase us meatbags away, but it demonstrated for us how such competitions can be used to advance the state of the art. The week's stand-out hacks included work on non-planar slicing to improve strength of 3D prints. It's safe to say that the Cartesian 3D printer has matured as a device, but this work proves there's plenty more in the world of 3D printing to be developed. Then there was a beautiful record cutting lathe project, far more than a toy and capable of producing good quality stereo recordings. Meanwhile it's always good to see the price of parts come down, and this time it's the turn of LIDAR sensors. There's a Raspberry Pi project capable of astounding resolution, for a price that wouldn't have been imaginable only recently. Finally we retrned to 3D printing, with an entirely printable machine, including the motors and the hot end. It's a triumph of printed engineering, and though it's fair to say that you won't be using it to print anything for yourself, we expect some of the very clever techniques in use to feature in many other projects. The week's cant-miss articles came from Maya Posch with a reality check for lovers of physical media, and Dan Maloney with a history of x-ray detection. You'll find all the links over at Hackaday!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36313360
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Ep 317: Quantum Diamonds, Citizen Science, and Cobol to AI
04/18/2025
Ep 317: Quantum Diamonds, Citizen Science, and Cobol to AI
When Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams need a break from writing posts, they hop on the podcast and talk about their favorite stories of the past week. Want to know what they were talking about? Listen in below and find out! In an unusual twist, a listener sent in the sound for this week's What's This Sound competition, so it turns out Elliot and Al were both stumped for a change. See if you can do better, and you might just score a Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. On the hacking front, the guys talked about what they hope to see as entries in the pet hacking contest, quantum diamonds (no kidding), spectrometers, and several science projects. There was talk of a tiny robot, a space mouse—the computer kind, not a flying rodent—and even an old-fashioned photophone that let Alexander Graham Bell use the sun like a string on a paper cup telephone. Things really heat up at the end, when there is talk about computer programming ranging from COBOL to Vibe programming. In case you've missed it, Vibe programming is basically delegating your work to the AI, but do you really want to? Maybe, if your job is to convert all that old COBOL code.
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Ep 316: Soft Robots, Linux the Hard Way, Cellphones into SBCs, and the Circuit Graver
04/11/2025
Ep 316: Soft Robots, Linux the Hard Way, Cellphones into SBCs, and the Circuit Graver
Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they talk about the best stories and hacks of the week. This episode starts off with a discussion of the Vintage Computer Festival East and Philadelphia Maker Faire -- two incredible events that just so happened to be scheduled for the same weekend. From there the discussion moves on to the latest developments in DIY soft robotics, the challenge of running Linux on 8-pin ICs, hardware mods to improve WiFi reception on cheap ESP32 development boards, and what's keeping old smartphones from being reused as general purpose computers. You'll also hear about Command and Conquer: Red Alert running on the Pi Pico 2, highly suspect USB-C splitters, and producing professional looking PCBs at home with a fiber laser. Stick around to the end to hear about the current state of non-Google web browsers, and a unique new machine that can engrave circuit boards with remarkable accuracy. Check out the if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36099420
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Ep 315: Conductive String Theory, Decloudified Music Players, and Wild Printing Tech
04/04/2025
Ep 315: Conductive String Theory, Decloudified Music Players, and Wild Printing Tech
This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up across the (stupid, lousy) time zones to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. Again, no news is good news. On What's That Sound, Kristina didn't get close at all, but at least had a guess this time. If you think you can identify the sound amid all the talking, you could win a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt! After that, it's on to the hacks and such, beginning with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation when it comes to a pair of formerly-cloud music players. We take a look at a crazy keyboard hack, some even crazier conductive string, and a perfectly cromulent list of 70 DIY synths on one wild webpage. Finally, we rethink body art with LEDs, and take a look at a couple of printing techniques that are a hundred years or so apart in their invention. Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, !
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/36006035
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Ep 314: It's Pi, but Also PCBs in Living Color and Ultrasonic Everything
03/28/2025
Ep 314: It's Pi, but Also PCBs in Living Color and Ultrasonic Everything
It might not be Pi Day anymore, but Elliot and Dan got together for the approximately 100*Pi-th episode of the Podcast to run through the week's coolest hacks. Ultrasound seemed to be one of the themes, with a deep dive into finding bugs with sonar as well as using sound to cut the cheese -- and cakes and pies, too. The aesthetics of PCBs were much on our minds, too, from full-color graphics on demand to glow-in-the-dark silkscreens. Is automation really needed to embed fiber optics in concrete? Absolutely! How do you put plasma in a bottle? Apparently, with kombucha, Nichrome, and silicone. If you need to manage your M:TG cards, scribble on the walls, or build a mechanical chase light, we've got the details. And what exactly is a supercomputer? We can't define it, but we know one when we see it.
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Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
03/21/2025
Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
We're firmly in Europe this week on the Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams and Jenny List are freshly returned from Berlin and Hackaday Europe. A few days of mingling with the Hackaday community, going through mild panic over badges and SAOs, and enjoying the unique atmosphere of that city. After discussing the weekend's festivities we dive right into the hacks, touching on the coolest of thermal cameras, wildly inefficient but very entertaining wireless power transfer, and a restrospective on the capacitor plague from the early 2000s. Was it industrial espionage gone wrong, or something else? We also take a moment to consider spring PCB cnnectors, as used by both one of the Hackaday Europe SAOs, and a rather neat PCB resistance decade box, before looking at a tryly astounding PCB blinky that sets a new miniaturisation standard. In our quick roundup the standouts are a 1970s British kit synthesiser and an emulated 6502 system written in shell script, and in the can't-miss section we look at a new contender fro the smallest microcontroller, and the posibility that a century of waste coal ash may conceal a fortune in rare earth elements. .
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Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
03/21/2025
Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
We're firmly in Europe this week on the Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams and Jenny List are freshly returned from Berlin and Hackaday Europe. A few days of mingling with the Hackaday community, going through mild panic over badges and SAOs, and enjoying the unique atmosphere of that city. After discussing the weekend's festivities we dive right into the hacks, touching on the coolest of thermal cameras, wildly inefficient but very entertaining wireless power transfer, and a restrospective on the capacitor plague from the early 2000s. Was it industrial espionage gone wrong, or something else? We also take a moment to consider spring PCB cnnectors, as used by both one of the Hackaday Europe SAOs, and a rather neat PCB resistance decade box, before looking at a tryly astounding PCB blinky that sets a new miniaturisation standard. In our quick roundup the standouts are a 1970s British kit synthesiser and an emulated 6502 system written in shell script, and in the can't-miss section we look at a new contender fro the smallest microcontroller, and the posibility that a century of waste coal ash may conceal a fortune in rare earth elements. .
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/35809175
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Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
03/21/2025
Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything
We're firmly in Europe this week on the Hackaday podcast, as Elliot Williams and Jenny List are freshly returned from Berlin and Hackaday Europe. A few days of mingling with the Hackaday community, going through mild panic over badges and SAOs, and enjoying the unique atmosphere of that city. After discussing the weekend's festivities we dive right into the hacks, touching on the coolest of thermal cameras, wildly inefficient but very entertaining wireless power transfer, and a restrospective on the capacitor plague from the early 2000s. Was it industrial espionage gone wrong, or something else? We also take a moment to consider spring PCB cnnectors, as used by both one of the Hackaday Europe SAOs, and a rather neat PCB resistance decade box, before looking at a tryly astounding PCB blinky that sets a new miniaturisation standard. In our quick roundup the standouts are a 1970s British kit synthesiser and an emulated 6502 system written in shell script, and in the can't-miss section we look at a new contender fro the smallest microcontroller, and the posibility that a century of waste coal ash may conceal a fortune in rare earth elements. .
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/35809155
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Ep 312: Heart Attacks, the Speed of Light, and Self-balancing
03/14/2025
Ep 312: Heart Attacks, the Speed of Light, and Self-balancing
Elliot does the podcast on the road to Supercon Europe, and Al is in the mood for math and nostalgia this week. Listen in and find out what they were reading on Hackaday this week. The guys talked about the ESP-32 non-backdoor and battery fires. Then it was on to the hacks. Self-balancing robots and satellite imaging were the appetizers, but soon they moved on to Kinect cameras in the modern day. Think you can't travel at the speed of light? Turns out that maybe you already are. Did you know there was a chatbot in 1957? Well, sort of. For the can't miss stories: watches monitor your heart and what does the number <em>e</em> really mean? if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/35700145
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Ep 311: AirTag Hack, GPS Rollover, and a Flat-Pack Toaster
03/07/2025
Ep 311: AirTag Hack, GPS Rollover, and a Flat-Pack Toaster
This week, Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start off the episode by announcing Arduino co-founder David Cuartielles will be taking the stage as the keynote speaker at Hackaday Europe. In his talk, we'll hear about a vision of the future where consumer electronics can be tossed in the garden and turned into compost instead of sitting in a landfill for the next 1,000 years or so. You'll also hear about a particularly clever manipulation of Apple's AirTag infrastructure, how a classic kid's toy was turned into a unique display with the help of computer vision, and the workarounds required to keep older Global Positioning System (GPS) hardware up and running. They'll also cover DIY toasters, extracting your data from a smart ring before the manufacturer can sell it, a LEGO interferometer, and a new feature added to the Bus Pirate 5's already impressive list of capabilities. Capping off the episode there's a discussion about the surprising (or depending on how you think about it, unsurprising) amount of hardware that was on display at FOSDEM this year, and the history of one of man's most infernal creations, the shopping cart wheel lock. and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
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Ep 310: Cyanotypes, Cyberdecks, and the Compass CNC
02/28/2025
Ep 310: Cyanotypes, Cyberdecks, and the Compass CNC
This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up in a secret location with snacks 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, and there's a lot of it: we announced the Hackaday Europe 2025 workshops and a few more speakers, though the big keynote announcement is still to come. In case you missed it, KiCad 9 moved up into the pro league, and finally, we're hiring, so come join us in the dungeon. On What's That Sound, Kristina didn't get close at all, but at least had a guess this time. That's okay, though, because nobody got it right! We're still giving a t-shirt away to [AlwaysTheWrongAnswer], though, probably because Elliot has a thing for using random number generators. Then it's on to the hacks and such beginning with a beautiful handheld compass CNC and cyanotype prints made with resin printer's UV light. After that, we take a look at open-source random numbers, a 3D-printed instant camera, and a couple of really cool cyberdecks. Finally, we discuss whether DOOM is doomed as the port of choice in this day and age, and kvetch about keyboards.
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Ep 309: Seeing WiFi, A World Without USB, Linux in NES in Animal Crossing
02/21/2025
Ep 309: Seeing WiFi, A World Without USB, Linux in NES in Animal Crossing
This week Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off with updates on the rapidly approaching Hackaday Europe and the saga of everyone's favorite 3D printed boat. From there they'll cover an impressive method of seeing the world via WiFi, Amazon's latest changes to the Kindle ecosystem, and an alternate reality in which USB didn't take over the peripheral world. You'll also hear about a multi-level hack that brings the joys of Linux into the world of Animal Crossing, 3D printed circuit components, and the imminent release of KiCAD 9. Stick around until the end to learn about a unique hardened glass from East Germany and the disappointing reality of modern voice control systems.
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Ep 308: The Worst 1 Ever, Google's Find My Opened, and SAR on a Drone
02/14/2025
Ep 308: The Worst 1 Ever, Google's Find My Opened, and SAR on a Drone
It's Valentine's Day today, and what better way to capture your beloved's heart than by settling down together and listening to the Hackaday Podcast! Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for this week's roundup of what's cool in the world of hardware. We start by reminding listeners that Hackaday Europe is but a month away, and that a weekend immersed in both hardware hacking and the unique culture offered by the city of Berlin can be yours. The stand-out hack of the week is introduced by Elliot, Henrik Forstén's synthetic aperture radar system mounted on a cheap quadcopter, pushing the limits of construction, design, and computation to create landscape imagery of astounding detail. Most of us will never create our own SAR system, but we can all learn a lot about this field from his work. Meanwhile Jenny brings us Sylvain Munaut's software defined radio made using different projects that are part of Tiny Tapeout ASICs. The SDR isn't the best one ever, but for us it represents a major milestone in which Tiny Tapeout makes the jump from proof of concept to component. We look forward to more of this at more reasonable prices in the future. Beyond that we looked at the porting of Google Find My to the ESP32, how to repair broken zippers, and tuning in to ultrasonic sounds. Have fun listening, and come back next week for episode 309!
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Ep 307: CNC Tattoos, The Big Chill in Space, and PCB Things
02/07/2025
Ep 307: CNC Tattoos, The Big Chill in Space, and PCB Things
The answer is: Elliot Williams, Al Williams, and a dozen or so great hacks. The question? What do you get this week on the Hackaday podcast? This week's hacks ran from smart ring hacking, to computerized tattoos. Keyboards, PCBs, and bicycles all make appearances, too. Be sure to try to guess the "What's that sound?" You could score a cool Hackaday Podcast T. For the can't miss this week, Hackaday talks about how to dispose of the body in outer space and when setting your ship's clock involved watching a ball drop.
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Ep 306: Bambu Hacks, AI Strikes Back, John Deere Gets Sued, and All About Capacitors
01/31/2025
Ep 306: Bambu Hacks, AI Strikes Back, John Deere Gets Sued, and All About Capacitors
It was Dan and Elliot behind the microphones today for a transatlantic look at the week in hacks. There was a bucket of news about AI, kicked off by Deepseek suddenly coming into the zeitgeist and scaring the pants off investors for... reasons? No matter, we're more interested in the tech anyway, such as a deep dive into deep space communications from a backyard antenna farm that's carefully calibrated to give the HOA fits. We got down and dirty with capacitors, twice even, and looked at a clever way to stuff two websites into one QR code. It's all Taylor, all the time on every channel of the FM band, which we don't recommend you do (for multiple reasons) but it's nice to know you can. Plus, great kinetic art project, but that tooling deserves a chef's kiss. Finally, we wrap up with our Can't Miss articles where Jenny roots for the right to repair, and Al gives us the finger(1).
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/35100625
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Ep 305: Caustic Clocks, Practice Bones, and Brick Layers
01/24/2025
Ep 305: Caustic Clocks, Practice Bones, and Brick Layers
This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces and Wonder-Twin rings 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: Big boo to Bambu Labs, who have tried to clarify their new authentication scheme and probably only dug themselves in deeper with their customers. On What's That Sound, Kristina didn't get close at all, but at least had a guess this time. Do know what it is? Let us know, and if you're right and your number comes up, you can keep warm in a limited edition Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Then it's on to the hacks and such beginning with a rather nice reverse-engineering of the Yamaha PRS-E433 keyboard, which led to a slice of Bad Apple playing on the tiny screen. After that, we take a look at an NES musical instrument, how to make wires explode with energy, and a really cool space mouse that uses flexures. Finally, we talk about a piece of forgotten Internet history, and a whole bunch of keyboards. if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
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Ep 304: Glitching the RP2350, Sim Sim Sim, and a Scrunchie Clock
01/17/2025
Ep 304: Glitching the RP2350, Sim Sim Sim, and a Scrunchie Clock
It's podcast time again, and this week Dan sat down with Elliot for a look back at all the cool hacks we've written about. We started off talking about Hackaday Europe, which is coming up in March -- seems unlikely that it's just around the corner, but there it is. There's also good news: the Hack Chat is back, and we started things off with a bang as Eben Upton stopped by to talk all things Pi. Separately, we talked about fault injection attacks, including how to find the hidden cup of 0xC0FFEE in an RP2350. We saw a very cool piece of LED jewelry that does a fluid simulation, a direct conversion radio that's all laid out in front of you, and the scrunchiest mechanical digital clock you'll ever see. We saw blinkenlights for blinkenlights' sake, all the ways to put threads in your prints, and how to ditch to coax and wire up your antennas with Cat 6 cable. Plus, it's an Al Williams twofer in the Can't-Miss Articles, with a look back at life before GPS and how you can tune into digital ham radio, no radio required.
/episode/index/show/hackaday/id/34895940
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Ep 303: The Cheap Yellow Display, Self-Driving Under $1000, and Don't Remix that Benchy
01/10/2025
Ep 303: The Cheap Yellow Display, Self-Driving Under $1000, and Don't Remix that Benchy
As the holiday party season fades away into memory and we get into the swing of the new year, Elliot Williams is joined on the Hackaday Podcast by Jenny List for a roundup of what's cool in the world of Hackaday. In the news this week, who read the small print and noticed that Benchy has a non-commercial licence? As the takedown notices for Benchy derivatives fly around, we muse about the different interpretations of open source, and remind listeners to pay attention when they choose how to release their work. The week gave us enough hacks to get our teeth into, with Elliot descending into the rabbit hole of switch debouncing, and Jenny waxing lyrical over a crystal oscillator. Adding self-driving capability to a 30-year-old Volvo caught our attention too, as did the intriguing Cheap Yellow Display, an ESP32 module that has (almost) everything. Meanwhile in the quick hacks, a chess engine written for a processor architecture implemented entirely in regular expressions impressed us a lot, as did the feat of sending TOSLINK across London over commercial fibre networks. Enjoy the episode, and see you again next week!
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