We’ve probably all taken a look at the rash of cheap Intel-Atom-based tablet computers and wondered whether therein lies an inexpensive route to a portable PC. Such limited hardware laden dow…

[MakinStuff] wrote in to let us know about a project he did for new and improved interfacing to the ubiquitous cheap Chinese digital calipers. Interfacing to this common caliper model is well-trod …

If your shop is anything like mine, you’ve got a large selection of colorful cans claiming to contain the best and absolutely only lubricant you’ll ever need. I’ve been sucked in …

3D printing is supposed to be about rapid prototyping. Design, print, use, re-design, print, test -- iterate until happy. But when you're laying down filament at 60 mm/s, it can seem anything but rapi...

Last time on Minimal MQTT, we used a Raspberry Pi to set up an MQTT broker — the central hub of a home data network. Now it’s time to add some sensor and display nodes and get this thin…

[Aldric Négrier] wrote in to let us know that his DriveMyPhone project has been open sourced. The project is a part telepresence, part remote-controlled vehicle, part robotic rover concept on which…

[Melka] wanted a track bike, but never quite got around to buying a nice one. Then he found an inexpensive abandoned project bike for 10 Euro. He had to do a lot of work to make it serviceable and he ...

For many years, the humble serial port was one of the best ways to communicate with an embedded system. Then USB ports became more popular and serial ports started to vanish. These days, even if yo…

Watch enough How It's Made, and you'll soon become very enthusiastic about computer vision and compressed air. In factories all around the world, production lines automatically sort the wheat from th...

What would it be like to ride a six foot rocket to nearly 400,000 feet at Mach 5.5? Thanks to UP Areospace and some GoPro cameras, you can find out.

The rocket was a test for the Maraia Capsule pro...

[professor churlz] wrote in to let us know his results with modifying radio control ESCs (Electronic Speed Controllers) for use in a large (250lb range) BattleBot's drivetrain. It's a very long and ...

A motor mount. A sturdy enclosure. A 43.7° bracket. The average hack requires at least one angled metal part, and the best tool to make one is still the good ol’ press brake. Bending parts re…

[Artem Litvinovich] wanted to see by heat vision like in the Predator movies. He not only succeeded but went on to see in color, medium-wave IR, short-wave IR, and ultraviolet using a very unique a…

Your quad-copter is hovering nicely 100 feet north of you, its camera pointed exactly on target. The hover is doing so well all the RC transmitter controls are in the neutral position. The wind pic…

Navid Gornall is a creative technologist at a London advertising agency, which means that he gets to play with cool toys and make movies. That also means that he spends his every working hour trying ...

This is what happens when you give Norwegian engineering students half a year to develop an ROV for their class.

The team utilized 3D printing to design and print their own thruster propellers and ...

[Andrew Sowa] wanted to use an off-the-shelf relay board from Numato Labs. The board lacks a suitable computer interface, which meant that [Andrew] would have to build one, and its input connectors ar...

Making conference badges is a tough job. Unless you're sitting on a gold mine, you have to contact a whole bunch of sponsors for help, work the parts that you can get into a coherent design, and do it...

[Paul] is very up-front about the realities of his $25 Satellite Tracker, which aims a tape measure yagi antenna at a satellite of choice and keeps it tracking the satellite as it moves overhead. D…

It’s not transparent aluminum, exactly, but it might be even better: transparent wood. Scientists at the University of Maryland have devised a way to remove all of its coloring, leaving behin…