There used to be a time, before running shoes had blinking LEDs and required placing on an inductive charger overnight, when we weren’t worried about whether or not we could dump the firmware…

Here's a slick-looking VGA demo written in assembly by [Yianni Kostaris]; it's VGA output from an otherwise stock ATmega2560 at 16MHz with no external chips involved. If you're getting some Super Ma...

What I particularly like about the Van de Graaff (or VDG) is that it’s a combination of a few discrete scientific principles and some mechanically produced current, making it an interesting s…

No one can deny what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing is a feat of technological wizardry. Building a rocket that takes off vertically, goes into space, and lands back on the pad is an astonishing …

3D printers are an exercise in compromise. Generally, you don't want a lot of mass on your tool head, as that can lead to ringing and other mechanical artifacts on your print. However, direct drive ex...

MakerBot CEO [Nadav Goshen] announced that changes are needed to ensure product innovation and support long-term goals in a blog post published yesterday. To that end, MakerBot will reduce its staff...

A little MDF, a little plywood, some bits of threaded rod - put it all together and you've got this low-cost desktop CNC build using very few parts you'd need to go farther afield than the local hom...

Vacuum formers are useful tools to have around the shop and also an incredibly simple technology. All you need is a plastic sheet, a heater of some kind, a table with a bunch of holes in it, and a vac...

From the blog of [telmomoya] we found his latest project: a hardware based multicore solution for a ZX Spectrum Emulator. It’s not the first time we feature one of his builds, last year we wa…

A while back, [limpfish] bought a few four-digit seven-segment displays from a seller on eBay. A month or two later, thirty displays ended up in [limpfish]’s mailbox. Instead of using the one…

If you were a child of the late 1980s or early 1990s, the chances are you’ll be in either the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive camp. Other 16-bit games consoles existed, but thes…

I had a friend who was an engineer for a small TV station. I visited him at work once, and despite the fact that he wouldn’t let me climb the 1,200′ antenna tower, I had a great time. I…

Exploiting the flexibility of plastic, a group of researchers has created a 3D printable microscope with sub-micron accuracy. By bending the supports of the microscope stage, they can manipulate a sam...

The LTC4316 is something special. It’s an I²C address translator that changes the address of a device that would otherwise conflict with another on the same I²C bus. Not a hack? Not so fast. …

What the heck is a Zooid? A Zooid is a small cylindrical robot, measuring 26 mm in diameter and 21 mm in height, weighting about 12g. Each robot is powered by a 100 mAh LiPo battery and uses motor …

It’s February, conference season hasn’t even started yet, and already there’s a winner of the best electronic badge of the year. For this year’s MAGfest, [CNLohr] and friend…

For those of us who can't get enough vicarious machining, YouTube is becoming a gold mine. Intricate timepieces, gigantic pump shafts, and more and better machine tools are all projects that seem to ...

[Will Forfang] found a app that lets you take a picture of a math equation with a phone and ask for a solution. However, the app wouldn't read handwritten equations, so [Will] decided to see how hard ...

Morse code enthusiasts can be picky about their paddles. After all, they are the interface between the man and the machine, and experienced telegraphers can recognize each other by their “han…