Obviously, the most iconic piece of fictional hardware from the Back to the Future films is Doc Brown’s DeLorean DMC-12 time machine. But we’d have to agree with [Jason Altice] of CodeMakesItGo that the second-most memorable gadget is the modified Futaba remote control used to control the DeLorean from a distance. Now, thanks to his detailed build guide, you can […]
BACK TO THE FUTURE PROP CAN TELL WHEN IT HITS 88 MPH Continue Reading
While it would have been considered science-fiction just a few decades ago, the ability to watch virtually any movie or TV show on a little slab that fits in your pocket is today no big deal. But for an electronics beginner, being able to put together a pocketable video player like this one would be quite exciting,
THIS SIMPLE MEDIA PLAYER WILL INSPIRE BEGINNERS AND INVITE EXPERIMENTATION Continue Reading
Electronic enthusiasts building projects that need to read analogue gauges, may be interested in a new article published to the official Arduino website this week providing more information about Nicla Vision. The system uses embedded machine learning and computer vision in order to autonomously read values and has been developed by the Zalmotek team. Nicla Vision features a powerful processor
Read analogue gauges electronically with Nicla Vision Continue Reading
Maker and developer Pheux9558, as they’re known on Reddit, has developed a custom CNC drawing machine from scratch using a Raspberry Pi. This tiny CNC machine(opens in new tab) is much smaller than your average plotter and uses some recycled hardware from old PCs, including parts from a CD drive and even components of an old floppy drive.
Raspberry Pi Drives Tiny CNC Drawing Machine Continue Reading
If a robot is rideable, is it still a robot or is it a vehicle? We would argue that if it rolls on standard automobile-style wheels or even tank tracks, it is a vehicle. But James Bruton’s eight-wheeled robot snake bike is quite clearly something else. This “vehicle” started as a small functional model that
This snake robot is large enough to ride upon Continue Reading
A new project will soon be launching via the Crowd Supply website in the form of the fully programmable, open source, ESP32 macropad, aptly named DeepDeck. The wireless programmable macropad features 16 mechanical buttons in a 4×4 grid together with two RGB rotary encoders, hot swappable keys and more. Connecting to a wide variety of different platforms using Bluetooth, DeepDeck supports Windows, MacOS,
DeepDeck programmable, open source, ESP32 macropad Continue Reading
[Brian Pugh] has shared a cool new project that simultaneously runs on desktop Python and MicroPython – the Belay library. This library lets you control a MicroPython device seamlessly from your Python code – interacting with real-world things like analog/digital trinkets, servos, Neopixels and displays, without having to create your own firmware or APIs. You need a
YOUR MICROPYTHON BOARD CAN BE YOUR TINKERING PERIPHERAL Continue Reading
When we first saw the PZ1 laptop — a 6502 laptop-style computer with a small display and 512K of RAM — we couldn’t help but think of the old AIM 65 computer from Rockwell, although that only had 1K of memory. The other thing the AIM didn’t have was an ancillary microcontroller to help out that is way more
LAPTOPPIN’ LIKE 1975 Continue Reading
A recent tour of an old WWII-era aircraft carrier reminded us how hard navigation was before the advent of GPS. It used to be the work of skilled people to sight the sun or the stars and use giant books to figure out a vessel’s position. Now you just ask your phone to listen to
LAWNMOWER DOESN’T NEED A BASE STATION Continue Reading
Bottom line: Repurposing obsolete hardware is a popular pastime among the tech community, and the latest project from the YouTube channel Artillect is a fine example of what’s possible when thinking outside of the box. Is it practical? No, not really. Is it neat? Absolutely. Riley took a Brother AX-25 electronic typewriter from the late 1980s that utilizes
