Hackaday Podcast

News and community challenges, including a green-powered contest and ongoing Artemis launch coverage. A mystery sound reveal and playful April Fools highlights. Builds range from clean non-3D-printed enclosures to lo-fi film-style cameras and an SMT tape counter. Weird and fun hacks include a mathy clock, electropermanent magnets, turning cola into mead, microwave metal casting, balcony solar adoption, and a debate over Copilot’s terms.

They chat about green-powered DIY contests and Europe’s plug-in balcony solar boom. Retro and lo-fi cameras, resin-printed front panels, and a cardboard archtop guitar get highlighted. A mathematical clock and an electropermanent magnet demo spark curiosity. There’s talk of turning soda into mead and a Magic 8-Ball reboot with a Pi Pico. The segment ends with debate over Copilot’s legal wording.

They chat news like Artemis launch coverage and the Green Power Challenge deadline. Mystery sound nostalgia and April Fool’s hijinks get a laugh. Hands‑on hacks include non‑3D-printed enclosures, lo‑fi Raspberry Pi and ESP32 cameras, and clever SMT tape taming. Quirky projects range from a math‑fact clock and a pressed‑cardboard guitar to converting soda into mead and balcony solar power trends.

They dive into the history of PLA and small-scale 3D printing tech. Listeners hear about direct pressure-advance measurement and sensor ideas for closed-loop printers. A DIY fiber-laser technique for fine PCB traces gets examined alongside when to make boards at home. Retro hardware stories include the CueCat and Zip drive, plus projects like a Pico Z80 replacement and a 3D printed robot arm.

They talk about DIY compression molding with 3D printed molds and recycled plastic. A quirky air-hockey robot build and a relay-based balanced ternary adder get highlighted. There is an alternate-history IPv4 extension and a modern revival of an old brick cellphone with 5G guts. The conversation also covers zipper repairs you can print and a debate over wired versus Bluetooth headphones.

They discuss spoofing traffic light control signals and the security gaps between old strobe systems and modern GPS-managed intersections. Debate whether a smartphone can truly replace a desktop given OS and ecosystem limits. Explore 3D printing topics from filament makers to real welding pens and durable joining techniques. Cover DIY e-readers, hardware hacking tutorials, a meteor over Germany, and how player AR scans became valuable map data.

They announce a green-powered contest and banter about heating mishaps. There are tech teardowns of a vulnerable Wi‑Fi extender and a coin‑op pay TV. Physics and cooling tricks appear in talks about elastocaloric nitinol stages and rubber‑band refrigerators. DIY highlights include PWM paint mixing, a permanent pen clip redesign, and running video through guitar pedals. Space and attention economy topics round out the talk.

They trade favorite hardware and hacking stories from intricate CAD-driven automata to a one-winged blimp deep dive. Discussions cover Peltier cooler pitfalls and a clever STM32 TV transmitter hack. Other highlights include ingestible password-pill concepts, a camera-noise hardware RNG, modular USB repair ideas, and a 3D-printed panoramic film camera.

They explore a soft pneumatic microfluidic display and a 3D printed vacuum valve system. A CRT-based DIY VR headset and an FPGA HDMI converter get a retro tech deep dive. There's talk of LCD apertures built into lens adapters and GPU-driven brute-force antenna design. Coverage also includes time-of-flight sensor arrays for real-time 3D mapping and vintage mind-control toys revisited.

Researchers hunt for the lost Luna 9 probe and debate preserving lunar heritage. A compact OS and interactive shell bring POSIX-like power to the ESP32. Teardowns reveal how to upcycle iPad displays for PC touch. Homebrew developers revive an obscure handheld and build a magnetic, self-playing chess robot. The conversation also covers antique phones turned intercoms, industrial robot safety lessons, and testing decade-old PLA filament.