It is easy to dismiss passive components like resistors and capacitors as a boring subject. [James Lewis] of Kemet Capacitors would disagree. He gave a talk about capacitor tech that is both approacha...

Looking to add some activity to your day but don’t want to go through a lot of effort? [D10D3] has the perfect solution that enables you to take a leisurely bike ride through Skyrim. A standi…

Some of the best hacks are the tools people make to help them complete a project. I last looked at quick tool hacks back in Hacklet 53. Hackers have been busy since then, and new projects have inspi...

In order to resolve the problem of congestion at the entrance to their hackerspace, the minds at i3Detroit installed a motion-activated mechanical iris in their door's porthole.

Grabbing the design...

This time last year, Stratasys, parent company of Makerbot, was implicated in a class action suit. Investors claimed Stratasys violated securities laws, and overstated both the performance of the 5th ...

Don't worry, the rhythms themselves aren't random! That would hardly make for a useful drum machine. [kbob]'s creation does have the ability to randomly generate functional rhythms, though, and it's...

A lot of work with binary arithmetic was pioneered in the mid-1800s. Boolean algebra was developed by George Boole, but a less obvious binary invention was created at this time: the Braille writing…

Looking at the plate on the bottom of his electric rice cooker, [AC_Hacker] was surprised to find that it was rated to consume 400 watts. Furthermore when he measured its consumption he found that …

FreeCAD is a fairly sophisticated, open-source, parametric 3D modeler. The open-source part means that you can bend it to your will. [Alexandre] is working on a module that lets him easily add tabs…

Word clocks are cool, but getting them to function correctly and look good is all about paying attention to the details. One look at this elegant walnut-veneered word clock shows what you can accompl...

Bluetooth beacons have only been around for a few years, but the draw is incredible. With Bluetooth beacons, your phone is location aware, even with location services are turned off. They're seen in f...

Don't let the friendly smile on this RC cart fool you, it will take your strawberries away -- though that's kinda the point. It's an RC car that [transistor-man] and a few friends modified for carryin...

As soon as he spied the Jolly Wrencher on my shirt, [Jerry Wasinger] beckoned me toward his booth at Kansas City Maker Faire. Honestly, though, I was already drawn in. [Jerry] had set up some interac...

Several years ago, Iran used GPS spoofing to 'land' an RQ-170 Sentinel drone operated by the US military. Why is this interesting now? Because this week Pokemon GO was released. It's a mobile, augmen...

What’s the size of a standard euro-palette, goes together in 15 minutes, and can charge 120 mobile phones at one time? At least one correct answer is Sunzilla, the open source solar power gen…

Blood glucose monitors are pretty ubiquitous today. For most people with diabetes, these cheap and reliable sensors are their primary means of managing their blood sugar. But what is the enterprisi…

It seems that one can buy cheap power meters online and, well, that’s it. They work just fine, but to use them for anything else (like datalogging or control or…) they need a bit more w…

If you’ve worked with radios or other high-frequency circuits, you’ve probably noticed the prevalence of 50 ohm coax. Sure, you sometimes see 75 ohm coax, but overwhelmingly, RF circuit…

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you doubtless read about the find of a really big new helium gas field in Tanzania. It’s being touted as “life-saving” and “gam…

Slowly, very slowly, the time when we don’t subject embedded beginners to AVRs and PICs is coming. At a glacial pace, FPGA development platforms are becoming ever more capable and less expens…