Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
7,076 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/first-days-with-a-new-microscope/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/dead-mouse-reincarnated-as-macropad/
Taylor] wanted to join the cool kids club and build a macropad for CAD work and video editing, but didn’t want to do it the traditional way with an Arduino. We can get behind that. In fact, [Taylor] wanted to reuse some old piece of tech if possible, which is even better. With a little luck, they found a used gaming mouse with a set of 12 tiny macro buttons on the side that were ripe for reuse. Only the scroll wheel was reported to be broken.
https://hackaday.io/project/183997-turning-a-broken-mouse-into-a-macro-pad
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/filament-dry-box-design-goes-way-over-the-top/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/ps2-memory-card-iso-loader-offers-classic-gaming-bliss/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/anti-curl-sandpaper-storage-is-impressive/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/15/you-can-send-midi-over-i2c-if-you-really-need-to/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Make Automatic Stair Lights Controller | Home Automation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7-aX6Cils&feature=share
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/16/tiny-ethernet-cable-arms-race-spawns-from-reddit-discussion/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/16/weird-phosphor-conversion-leds-found-in-cheap-led-string/
Tomi Engdahl says:
PendulumSynth Ties Music And Physics Together
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/pendulumsynth-ties-music-and-physics-together/
Many musicians will be familiar with the metronome, a pendulum charged with generating a rhythmic tick to keep one’s performance in regular time. With PendulumSynth, [mrezanvari] takes the same basic pendulum but uses it in an altogether different musical way.
The build relies on a 10-inch plastic ball to serve as the weighted end of the pendulum, stuffed with a STM32F411CE BlackPill board, a BNO085 IMU, and an nRF radio module for sending out data for external processing. The pendulum’s motion is turned into MIDI data or CV for output to musical hardware which handles actually generating the output sounds.
PendulumSynth
https://hackaday.io/project/182341-pendulumsynth
PendulumSynth is an on-going and open-source project with the goal of mixing real-world physics into music composition and performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/remoticon-2021-matt-venn-helps-you-make-asics/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/fpga-starter-videos-to-help-soften-that-learning-curve/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/unique-clock-is-all-hands-no-dial/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/infinity-mirror-hypercrystal-is-as-beautiful-as-it-sounds/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building A High-Capacity Linear Servo Actuator
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/17/building-a-high-capacity-linear-servo-actuator/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/automatic-sorting-machine-makes-beadwork-enjoyable-again-cbe9a521feb0
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2022/02/usb-propeller-led-fan-clock-circuit.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/exercise-buddy-provides-workout-motivation-5b6c89b76b7d
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/29/planar-pcb-coils-as-an-alternative-to-winding-transformers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.edn.com/vintage-test-equipment-not-just-for-old-engineers/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/projects/tags/valentines
Tomi Engdahl says:
This “G-Force Player” Lets You Feel Accelerometer Recordings In-Time with a Journey’s Video
Using data recorded on a smartphone, this desktop device lets you feel every twist and turn of a recorded journey.
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-g-force-player-lets-you-feel-accelerometer-recordings-in-time-with-a-journey-s-video-d91659eef783
Tomi Engdahl says:
ElectroVoxel robots reconfigure themselves using magnets
https://blog.arduino.cc/2022/02/08/electrovoxel-robots-reconfigure-themselves-using-magnets/
These Magnetic Robots Assemble Like Voltron
https://www.hackster.io/news/these-magnetic-robots-assemble-like-voltron-37e4b1f4ec5d
MIT CSAIL’s ElectroVoxel robotics system solves the issue of actuation in self-reconfigurable robots.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY sonar scanner (practical experiments)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4uxC7ISd-c
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Hack is Genius! Fix Broken Plastics With Plastic Welding Method
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4T3KcMJNYE
Many items in the house and workshop are made of plastic. These plastics stretch and break over time, and most people throw away their broken plastic items. However, since plastic is a material that melts easily, you can easily repair it with plastic welding or soldering. If you have broken plastic items and you want to throw them away, be sure to watch this video called Repair your broken plastics with plastic welding method and learn how to repair your broken, cracked plastics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/18/dial-into-the-internet-like-its-1999/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RC Snowmobile Makes Tracks On Ice
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/18/rc-snowmobile-makes-tracks-on-ice/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source LXI Tools Free Us From Vendor Bloat
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/18/open-source-lxi-tools-free-us-from-vendor-bloat/
LXI, or LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation is a modern control standard for connecting electronics instrumentation which supports ethernet. It replaces the older GPIB standard, giving much better performance and lower cost of implementation. This is a good thing. [Martin Lund] has created the open source lxi-tools project which enables us to detach ourselves from the often bloated vendor tools usually required for talking LXI to your bench equipment. This is a partial rewrite of an earlier version of the tool, and now sports some rather nice features such as mDNS for instrument discovery, support for screen grabbing, and a LUA-based scripting backend. (API Link)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Homemade Toy Wind Tunnel Blows (Really Well)
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/18/homemade-toy-wind-tunnel-blows-really-well/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BjSQnM58p0
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY Float Valve For Passive Hydroponics Leverages 3D Printing
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/19/diy-float-valve-for-passive-hydroponics-leverages-3d-printing/
Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Do My Eyes Deceive Me After All
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/19/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-do-my-eyes-deceive-me-after-all/
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY Hydrophone Listens In On The Deep For Cheap
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/19/diy-hydrophone-listens-in-on-the-deep-for-cheap/
The microphone is a pretty ubiquitous piece of technology that we’re all familiar with, but what if you’re not looking to record audio in the air, and instead want to listen in on what’s happening underwater? That’s a job for a hydrophone! Unfortunately, hydrophones aren’t exactly the kind of thing you’re likely to find at the big-box electronics store. Luckily for us, [Jules Ryckebusch] picked up a few tricks in his 20-year career as a Navy submariner, and has documented his process for building a sensitive hydrophone without needing a military budget.
Let’s Build Some World Class Hydrophones
https://www.instructables.com/Lets-Build-Some-World-Class-Hydrophones/
Sound Sleuth Hydrophone Build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ_KqJDaOM4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spectrometer Detects Chemicals By Zapping Samples With A Laser Beam
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/19/spectrometer-detects-chemicals-by-zapping-samples-with-a-laser-beam/
Here at Hackaday, we love projects that result in useful lab equipment for a fraction of the cost of professional gear. [Lorenz], over at Advanced Tinkering, built his own instrument for Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, or LIBS, and it’s quite an impressive device. LIBS is a technique for analyzing substances to find their chemical composition. Basically, the idea is to zap a sample with a powerful laser, then look at the little cloud of plasma that results and measure the wavelengths emitted by it.
The laser [Lorenz] used is a Nd:YAG unit salvaged from a tattoo removal machine. After it fires a pulse, a photodiode detects the light and triggers a spectrometer, which consists of a diffraction grating, a few lenses and mirrors, and a linear CCD sensor. The grating splits the incoming lights into its constituent components, which fall onto the CCD and trigger its pixels. An STM32 Nucleo board reads out the results and sends them to a PC for further processing.
Using lasers to analyze samples (LIBS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C7Hajgg9nU
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/20/all-about-dichroic-optical-filters/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9McddItZk8
Tomi Engdahl says:
Immersive Stereo Sound Recording With This Binaural Microphone
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/20/immersive-stereo-sound-recording-with-this-binaural-microphone/
Sound recording has been a consumer technology for so long now that it is ubiquitous, reaching for a mobile device and firing up an app takes only an instant. Anyone who takes an interest in audio recording further will find that while it’s relatively straightforward to make simple recordings. But, as those among you who have fashioned a pair of Shure SM58s into an X configuration with gaffer tape will know, it can be challenging to create a stereo image when recording outside the studio. In the quest to perfect this, [Kevin Loughin] has created a binaural microphone, which simulates a human head with microphones placed as ears to produce ambient recordings with an almost-immersive stereo image.
Sound – A D.I.Y. binaural head microphone project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV7bch5u8zU
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Ball Lens For Optical Fiber Coupling On The Cheap
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/21/a-ball-lens-for-optical-fiber-coupling-on-the-cheap/
It’s fair to say that for most of us, using a fiber optic cable for digital audio or maybe networking will involve the use of an off-the-shelf termination. We snap the cable into the receptacle, and off we go. We know that inside there will be an LED and some lenses, but that’s it. [TedYapo] though has gone a little further into the realm of fibers, by building his own termination. Faced with the relatively high cost of the ball lenses used to focus light from an LED into the end of the fiber he started looking outside the box. He discovered that spherical glass anti-bumping balls used when boiling fluids in laboratories make an acceptable and much cheaper alternative.
https://twitter.com/tedyapo/status/1494875323204345863
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dummy The Robot Arm Is Not So Dumb
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/21/dummy-the-robot-arm-is-not-so-dumb/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Off-Grid Makeshift Cell Network
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/21/an-off-grid-makeshift-cell-network/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Super Simple Camera Slider With A Neat Twist
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/super-simple-camera-slider-with-a-neat-twist/
When you get into making videos of products or your own cool hacks, at some point you’re going to start wondering how those neat panning and rotating shots are achieved. The answer is quite often some kind of mechanical slider which sends the camera along a predefined path. Buying one can be an expensive outlay, so many people opt to build one. [Rahel zahir Ali] was no different, and designed and built a very simple slide, but with a neat twist.
This design uses a geared DC motor, taken from a car windscreen wiper. That’s a cost effective way to get your hands on a nice high-torque motor with an integral reduction gearbox. The added twist is that the camera mount is pivoted and slides on a third, central smooth rod. The ends of this guide rod can be offset at either end, allowing the camera to rotate up to thirty degrees as the slide progresses from one end to the other. With a few tweaks, the slider can be vertically mounted, to give those up-and-over shots. Super simple, low tech and not an Arduino in sight.
CAMERA SLIDER WITH OBJECT TRACKING
it can slide and rotate the camera in the same time it can stand in 90 degree + 30 degree
https://hackaday.io/project/184049-camera-slider-with-object-tracking
DIY Camera Slider With Object Tracking- NO Arduino or Coding Needed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slqCsvnURbI&t=1s
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Chemistry: From Gasoline To Wintergreen
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/big-chemistry-from-gasoline-to-wintergreen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Classic Multimeter Tells You If Your WiFi’s Working
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/classic-multimeter-tells-you-if-your-wifis-working/
Simpson Meter Provides Internet Status
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw3AmSZErc&t=1s
Tomi Engdahl says:
Minimalistic Doorbell Doesn’t Need An Internet Connection – Or Even A Power Supply
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/minimalistic-doorbell-doesnt-need-an-internet-connection-or-even-a-power-supply/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_rXvGx3hEI&t=1s
Tomi Engdahl says:
What To Do With A Broken Television When You Can’t Fix It
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/what-to-do-with-a-broken-television-when-you-cant-fix-it/
Who can say ‘no’ to a free TV, even if it’s broken? This was the situation [Andrew Menadue] ended up in last year when he was offered an LG 39LE4900 LCD TV. As [Andrew] describes in the blog post along with videos (see first part embedded after the break), this particular television had been taken to a television repair shop previously after the HDMI inputs stopped working, but due to a lack of replacement parts the owner had to make due with the analog inputs still working. That is, until those stopped working as well.
The nice thing about these TVs is that they are very modular inside, as [Andrew] also discovered to his delight. In addition to the LG controller board, an inverter board and the power supply board, this TV also contained a TCON PCB. After some initial unsuccessful swapping of the parts with EBay replacements, nothing was (surprisingly) working, but it did turn out that the TCON and inverter boards are made and sold by AUO (major Taiwanese display manufacturer), along with the display itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EuD2UNrelg
Tomi Engdahl says:
Winding Your Own Small Coils
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/22/winding-your-own-small-coils/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhMssKZZ1OY
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://trochilidae.blogspot.com/2021/06/re-using-broken-television-as-monitor.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Coin Cell Eliminator Does More Than Save Batteries
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/23/coin-cell-eliminator-does-more-than-save-batteries/
Coin cells are useful things that allow us to run small electronic devices off a tiny power source. However, they don’t have a lot of capacity, and they can run out pretty quickly if you’re hitting them hard when developing a project. Thankfully, [bobricius] has just the tool to help.
The device is simple – it’s a PCB sized just so to fit into a slot for a CR2016 or CR2032 coin cell. The standard board fits a CR2016 slot thanks to the thickness of the PCB, and a shim PCB can be used to allow the device to be used in a CR2032-sized slot instead.
Coin cell battery emulator CR2016/CR2032
Disappointed purchasing new batteries for development?
Do you need measure current and consumption of your device?
https://hackaday.io/project/26896-coin-cell-battery-emulator-cr2016cr2032
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pulling Off A CRT Transplant Doesn’t Have To Be Tricky!
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/23/pulling-off-a-crt-transplant-doesnt-have-to-be-tricky/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bend It Like (Sonar) Beacon With A Phased Array
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/23/bend-it-like-sonar-beacon-with-a-phased-array/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finding Lo-fi In All The Strange Places
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/23/finding-lo-fi-in-all-the-strange-places/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Worst Soldering Job?
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/24/ask-hackaday-whats-your-worst-soldering-job/
Soldering! It’s the primary method for attaching one component to another in the world of electronics. Whether you’re free-forming a circuit, attaching connectors to cables, or populating a PCB, you’ll eventually find yourself doing some soldering, whether by hand, reflow, or maybe even a fancy wave soldering machine.
It’s a fundamental skill that nevertheless remains one of the biggest hurdles for newcomers to overcome when diving into the electronics hobby. Difficult jobs with tiny components or with large heat sinks can up the challenge for even well-practiced hands. Thus, today we ask the question: What’s your worst soldering job?
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Get Your Diffraction Grating 3D Prints Right The First Time
https://hackaday.com/2022/02/24/how-to-get-your-diffraction-grating-3d-prints-right-the-first-time/