Table of contents for #75 in HackSpace

As someone who grew up watching Inspector Gadget, the ability to create some wacky portable devices was a big part of the reason I grew up loving to build things. To be honest, not much has changed. Gadgets exist in the space between utility, geekery, and fashion – a really good gadget has to have a bit of all three. And our skills as makers can help in each of these areas. We can personalise it to our particular needs, we can nerd-out as much as we like on the technicals, and we can give it our own unique aesthetic. Join us as we take a look at makers building their own doodads and whatsits. Go go gadget … well, whatever. Got a comment, question, or thought about HackSpace magazine?…

hsmag.cc/KineticPCCase This beautiful PC case was inspired by PC retailer CyberPower’s kinetic PC case. It moves – it looks a bit like the vents of a jet engine opening – but it’s not available to buy. The company teased PC enthusiasts with a glimpse a couple of years ago but, for whatever reason, it hasn’t yet come to pass other than as a concept. Robert, the human behind the Ideal Idea YouTube channel, took this as a sign that he should build his own moving PC case, and, wouldn’t you know, it’s even better than the one that inspired him. The brilliant thing about this build is how open Robert has been in showing his development process. He initially thought of controlling each hexagon with its own linear actuator, but…

Think of what makes a great gadget and it’s hard to escape the idea that they are about kudos, kerb appeal, and communication – not necessarily all in the same package, of course. The smartphone is arguably the ultimate expression of gadgetry, encompassing all three concepts. It also demonstrates the importance of portability. How else to gain that all-important kudos without being able to take it out and about to show it off to our friends? We kick-start our look at the world of homemade handhelds and wearables with two great phone examples of home-brew design before applauding repurposed tech to create incredible cyberdecks and tiny PCs. Electronics play an important part in musical and visual gadgets too, as well as in homages to iconic films and games. With cosplay becoming…

Fancy Octopus Arcades ● Brooklyn-based Shonee Strother and his son Wolf both loved arcade games and the characters found in animations and cartoons, but the constraints of a New York apartment meant their entertainment ideas far outstripped the realities of what might be practical at home. Shonee “saw folks making huge gaming rooms, loading them up with arcade cabinets, and realised that for some of us in smaller apartments, that wasn’t a possibility.” The pair set about installing RetroPie builds inside portable boom boxes and mini cabinets and customising each ‘fancy’ arcade with plastic dolls and other props to match each arcade’s games offerings. The mini cabinets are Raspberry Pi-powered and “packed to the gills with games and easily plug in via standard HDMI for video audio output.” Each design…

Miniature observatory ● This gorgeous mini observatory is the work of Matt Hough, a retiree with a long-term interest in astronomy who now has time to put the Python and hardware design ideas he’s been honing into practice, starting with experiments using Raspberry Pi Pico. He taught himself about stepper motors for use with astronomy cameras, then realised an RP2040 offered the power and control he needed and would work alongside the main Raspberry Pi 4B. “Mechanical and observatory design were something new for me. I’d done some 3D printing before, but never had to design so many parts myself. The observatory, gears, and mechanism are all homegrown. The semi-intelligent motor controller for the telescope is probably the most novel homegrown element. I needed a way for the telescope to…

A bout four years ago, in the cold of December, I was boarding a plane destined for the UK. I’d applied for university to study computer science, and part of the interview involved an expectation you’d have some kind of project to talk about. So, I spent the preceding weeks attempting to devise a project that I hoped would impress the interviewers. I’d always been very fascinated with maths and, at the time, fractals more than anything had caught my attention. Fractals are geometric shapes that we can generate with mathematics. Some fractals, when tuned correctly, can be stunningly beautiful. To this day, it still blows my mind how much visual complexity you can have emerge from relatively simple equations. At that time, I spent hours exploring their vast landscapes and adjusting…

The year is 2024. Humans have been subjugated, ruled over by parasitic oblongs that feed on our emotions, trading dopamine for electricity. It is the year of the smartphone. Some fight against the inevitable – see page 14 to see how Guy Dupont tames the emotional blackmail of the smartphone. Some accept their fate. Matthew Ghost has decided that if he must have a smartphone pinging up notifications every so often, it might as well be in his eyeline on his desk so he can take a quick look, rather than suffer the physical distraction of getting the thing out of his pocket and prodding it to find out which app is craving his attention this time. He’s done a brilliant job of it too. This example is printed in…

Take your Raspberry Pi on the move by designing and making a wheeled robot This tutorial will explain how you can design and make your own robot. Start by designing your own chassis and mount mecanum wheels with full direction control. The robot will then need four separate motors individually controlled with a H-bridge driver for each wheel. Take control by learning how to use AntiMicroX to control the robot with a gamepad. 01 Mecanum wheels Mecanum wheels are a type of omnidirectional wheel which can be used to move a robot vehicle in multiple directions. They are particularly good at getting into tight spaces as the wheels can propel the robot forwards and backwards as normal, but can then also move diagonally or sideways without any forward or backwards movement.…

In a previous article, we discovered how to create a little desktop robot called the Hull Pixelbot. Now we are going to give our robot connections. We’ll start by making it host a web page we can use to program it, and then we’ll move on to look at a network server that can be used to host robot sports events. You can find all the code for the robot and instructions for setup at the GitHub repository here: hsmag.cc/HullPixelbotGH. HOSTING A WEB PAGE IN A ROBOT A non-networked Hull Pixelbot is programmed via its USB connection. To do this, you plug the robot into a computer with a USB cable and visit this link hsmag.cc/HullPixelbotEditor in your browser. This website hosts an editor for program code written in the language…

In part three of this series on building a budget modular synth, we’re going to tidy up a few of the niggles in our nascent synthesizer system. We’ve skipped over a few bits in order to get some output, even if it’s not perfect output. First, let’s make sure we can get sound out and into a pair of headphones with something a little more robust than a crocodile clip. So far, we’ve been taking the sound output directly from the R2R ladder. This works but it’s very quiet. A much better solution is to add an amplifier, and you can get headphone amplifier modules cheaply. The one we got takes a 5V power supply, and left and right inputs that it amplifies. As with everything in this (or any other…

INPUT LABS ➔ £VARIES | inputlabs.io Making a games controller is easy – you just need a handful of buttons, a Raspberry Pi, and about 20 lines of CircuitPython. We’ve done it many times. However, making a good games controller is a different challenge entirely. Subtle changes in the form factor affect how it feels in your hand. The code has to relay the inputs accurately and with very low latency. What’s more, if you want to make it reproducible by other people, you need a design that’s easy to copy and good documentation to go with it. The team at Input Labs took on this challenge with the Alpakka gaming controller. The design files are open-source, so you can start completely from scratch if you like, but we took…

braillerap.org Braille, the tactile alphabet used by blind and partially sighted people, was invented almost 200 years ago by Louis Braille, in 1829. It’s still widely used, but if you want to print anything in Braille (actually, there’s no ink involved, so the correct term is embossing rather than printing) it’s going to set you back a few quid. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has a few on offer on its website, with prices starting at £1760 for the cheapest model. You can get a roughly equivalent home inkjet printer for under £30. The difference is absurd, and it’s all because of the much more limited market, and the number of moving parts that machines like Braille embossers need. This combination – of high price, established tech,…

Mitxela.com "I was recently fortunate enough to find myself in the pub with some very creative and talented people. The discussion turned to electronic candles, and how one might create something that would look like a flickering candle from any angle. I suggested a persistence of vision display, but the general consensus was that those require too much in the way of supporting machinery to make them work: bearings, and probably slip rings and so on.” So begins Tim Jacobs’ explanation of his brilliant volumetric display. It’s a tiny build (pictured here with a human finger for scale), and it’s also quite brilliant in its approach to an engineering challenge: the problem that you normally get when building anything using persistence of vision is getting power to the moving parts. If…

OURS smartphone ■ If you’re taken by handset design rather than upcycling □ an existing phone, you could do a lot worse than follow Evan Robinson’s build instructions for the 4G LTE OURS (open-source, upgradable, repairable smartphone). Running Raspberry Pi OS and primed with familiar smartphone apps such as Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, it has a 5MP camera, microphone, and volume control, as well as an HDMI port to attach an external display alongside the OURS’ 4-inch Waveshare touchscreen. Evan created the handset with privacy and security in mind, but it is also great value, with a bill of materials costing roughly 180 euros. Evan says the most difficult part of the build was getting the power system stable enough to power the machine through boot because it uses a…

Fuzz Effect ● Fuzz effects can make music seem more raw and alive, rather than regular and controlled, adding reverb and delay to shape the tone to make it more unique and appropriate, in the words of maker Handy Bear. Beloved of rock guitarists, it seems fitting that the grungy image is echoed by the homemade vibes of this DIY distortion pedal build. Using a blank breadboard, some jumpers, LEDs, and capacitors, and encasing the electronics in a metal enclosure, you can make a range of effects. Sites such as tagboardeffects.blogspot.com advise on how to make effects reminiscent of particular songs and bands, explains Handy Bear, and a fuzz effect is fairly simple and a good starting point. Spaces for the foot switch, LEDs, potentiometer, and cable all need to…

PLAY & CODE GAMES! Retro Gaming with Raspberry Pi shows you how to set up a Raspberry Pi to play classic games. Build your own games console or full-size arcade cabinet, install emulation software and download classic arcade games with our step-by-step guides. Want to make games? Learn how to code your own with Python and Pygame Zero. ■ Set up Raspberry Pi for retro gaming ■ Emulate classic computers and consoles ■ Learn to code your own retro-style games ■ Build a console, handheld, and full-size arcade machine BUY ONLINE: magpi.cc/store…

BARBOT O.M.G. The cocktail robot in issue 74 is amazing. I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before. I currently have a cupboard full of weird and wonderful drinks that I bought at one time or another, but never use because I can’t remember what to do with them. With one of these, I can just program in all the drinks and then the robot can serve me up whatever strange drinks my heart desires. I suppose I could also get a notepad and write down the recipes, but a robot seems like more fun. Dave Glasgow Ben Says: Glad you enjoyed it. Cocktail bots have been around for a while, but this one is a nice compact build. Who needs a notepad when you can over-engineer a solution?…

Rubber stamps are different things to different people. To some, they’re a labour-saving device – why write the same thing over and over again when you don’t have to? To others, they’re a way of adding a bit of colour to personalised objects. To children, they’re a way of adding a level of detail to a picture that they may not yet have the coordination to add otherwise. In some countries, they’re still used in place of signatures on official documents. However you plan to use one, though, the process for making one is the same. You need to start with a flexible material, and remove any bits that you don’t want to transfer ink onto the paper. Technically, the material doesn’t have to be flexible, but you’ll get a…

Solvent smoothing is one of those things that seems great in theory, but can be a pain in reality. The idea is simple. All 3D prints have layer lines, but you can remove them by dissolving the outer layer of plastic in a small amount of solvent. The now-liquid plastic will flow into the crevices between the layers, and the solvent will evaporate, leaving the plastic that was dissolved in it to fill any gaps and produce a shiny surface. The main problem with it is that it usually involves harsh chemicals. PLA, in particular, needs substances like chloroform, which requires equipment beyond our workshop setup to do it safely, so we’ve been unable to test it out. ABS is a little more straightforward as it can be smoothed with…

ADAFRUIT ➔ $110 | adafruit.com The Zumo Robot is an Arduino-based tracked robot that is less than 10 cm × 10 cm, which qualifies it for mini sumo competitions. Power is provided by two micro metal gearbox motors, and it features a stainless steel bulldozer-like blade for pushing around the competition. It has six infrared sensors for line following or edge detection, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, gyroscope, and a buzzer, allowing you to play your favourite victory song. No soldering required – just add four AA batteries and an Arduino, and you’ll be all set for some robotic sumo wrestling. LEGO COMPATIBLE CONTINUOUS ROTATION SERVO PIMORONI ➔ $6.35 | pimoroni.com If you’ve got LEGO, and you want to start building bots, this Continuous Rotation Servo might be perfect for you. Unlike…

ROMA AGRAWAL ➔ £22 | hsmag.cc/nandbbook The life of a tech reviewer is thinking deeply – perhaps too deeply – about progress. Is version N+1 of a widget really better than version N? Yes, it has more gigabytes or transistors or fancier graphics, but what does that mean? Is it actually more useful? Will it result in an appreciable difference to your life? Yes, there is some value in novelty and enjoyment to come from having a new shiny thing, but is it really worth spending the monetary equivalent of tens or hundreds of hours of work to upgrade? Nuts and Bolts is the antidote to this. It claims to look at seven inventions that changed the world, but we’re not sure this is quite accurate. It looks at seven lineages…

community.element14.com The moon orbits Earth every 27.3 days. It doesn’t have leap years; it doesn’t have some months when it takes 30 days, or 31, like our silly calendar months. Give a person (or, in this case, a Raspberry Pi Pico W) a date in time, present or past, and they’ll be able to tell you what the moon looked like on that day using a really simple formula. If you were to take that knowledge and add a hollow, light-up model of the moon, a motor board from Kitronik, and a Raspberry Pi Pico, you might come up with a device like this by Lorraine Underwood. It’s very simple: you just enter a date, and the light inside the moon moves to show the phase of the moon on…

hsmag.cc/Mailblocks Guy Dupont has a problem: he keeps making brilliant creations that pique the interest of the internet. Every time he makes something interesting on the internet, his phone starts blowing up with notifications. What to do? Well, in a bit of a meta-twist, he decided to make yet another brilliant device, only this time, one that would block notifications until such a time as he’s ready for them. This is the Mailblocks. It’s based on the old-fashioned mailboxes of North America, in the days when you’d have to get up and move your body to receive paper messages once a day from the outside world, and it means that Guy’s Android phone doesn’t bug him with updates unless he chooses to accept them. Guy uses a Raspberry Pi acting…

■ The original business smartphone, BlackBerry’s main legacy now seems to be the usefulness of its tiny keyboard in retro builds and cyberdecks such as this laser-cut, wood-clad version by Michael Klements. “Most keyboards, even compact and foldable ones, are three to four times bigger than the final build size that I was going for – and you’d still need to add a mouse to that,” Michael explains. However, he was delighted to discover Solder Party’s BB version on Tindie (hsmag.cc/BBQ20Keyboard). The Clamshell Blackberry Cyberdeck features a HyperPixel 4.0 display which hooks up to Raspberry Pi 4 via its GPIO pins. The advantage here is that there’s no need for an additional power source for the screen, meaning Michael could keep his build ultra-compact. This aim also involved a tricky design…

Watchy ■ Watchy is a great-looking timepiece with a 200×200-pixel e-paper display, a glare-free 180-degree viewing angle, and ultra-low power consumption. Powered by an ESP32-PICO-D4, it is a certified open-source hardware kit that you can customise with your own watch-face designs. Examples (and code provided) include random Tetris and mandala designs. There is also the option to design your own watch-case with the provided schematic if you don’t wish to stick with Watchy’s standard version. The kit includes the PCB, battery, double-sided tape, wrist strap, plastic case, and e-ink display.  watchy.sqfmi.com NeoPixel Cosmic Turtle Necklace ● There’s a lot to like about this light-up pendant build which makes use of Adafruit NeoPixel Jewel, which has seven controllable LEDs, a Trinket, and your choice of either upcycled or 3D-printed and painted pendant…

GET SIX ISSUES FOR JUST: £30 UK/€43 EU/$43 USA & Canada FREE Pico W for subscribers! GUARANTEED RASPBERRY PI 5 AVAILABLE NOW for all subscribers SUBSCRIBER BENEFITS: > Get every issue of HackSpace magazine delivered to your door > Early access to the PDF edition > Beat the crowds with guaranteed Raspberry Pi 5 stock for subscribers > Get a free Raspberry Pi Pico W hsmag.cc/subscribe Subscribers will get a voucher giving them the chance to purchase one Raspberry Pi 5 from reserved stock at The Pi Hut (thepihut.com) for full retail price. Reserved stock means that these will be available even if they are out of stock for general purchase.…

For a small mountainous country divided between Italian, French and German [and Latin] speakers, Switzerland punches well above its weight in terms of design. Univers, Frutiger, and the mighty Helvetica are all Swiss; HR Giger, the creative brain behind the look and feel of the Alien films, was Swiss; even the Swiss flag is neatly minimalist. If you’re designing in Switzerland, you’re standing on some very large shoulders. Two such designers are English duo Vanessa Bradley and Martin Spendiff. As VEEB, the duo have been creating devices sometimes simple, sometimes complicated, but always beautifully clean. We caught up with Martin late last year to find out what they’re all about. HACKSPACE Are you designers first and foremost, or engineers, or something else? I ask because your projects are unusually pretty.…

When you learn 3D printing, you find out about the different types of files that are used. First, there are files that contain details of the objects – usually STL files. We slice these files to produce the second type of file, G-code, that tells the printer what to do and how to move. This is a good way of doing things, and it means that it’s easy to print identical objects repeatedly on a large number of machines. However, it does have a downside. It means that we are at the mercy of our slicers. We can only print things in the way they are sliced. It doesn’t have to be like this, though. Our printers are far more capable than our slicing software would have us believe. FullControl…

Thirty years ago, most people came back from a holiday, or a special event, with a collection of little plastic containers. Those containers would get put into an envelope and taken to the local pharmacy, where you’d fill out a form and hand over some money to the person behind the counter. A few days later, you’d collect another envelope with your (or occasionally someone else’s) photographs in, and then you’d visit your friends and bore them to tears by showing them all, one after another. A few years later, digital cameras came of age. Social media gave us the opportunity to put photographs directly onto the internet and bore all of our friends at once from hundreds of miles away. In the wake of these technological advances, the interest…

In the last part of this KiCad series, we looked at the different substrates and other hardware options that are available across a range of PCB fabricators and PCBA services. In this section, we are going to generally look at the range of services that are available, and look at what some of the services and companies need from us to make our PCB projects. We’ll also mention a few of the quirks we’ve found in some services that had us scratching our heads. Each service is well-established and capable of creating quality PCBs and/or assembled PCBs. However, they each have different specifications and tolerances. In fact, that’s often a good place to start when comparing or looking for a service to make your project. Questions to ask yourself include: what…

TINDIE ➔ $95 | tindie.com PIMORONI ➔ $37 | pimoroni.com After making some BEAM bots, my next robot was in fact a turtle bot. I believe it was based on a PIC microcontroller. It wasn’t easy to program, compared to modern-day microcontrollers, but it was still a lot of fun. This Open Source Turtle Robot Kit by MakersBox reminds me of my first turtle bot. However, this bot comes preloaded with an Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 microcontroller with Python firmware. That sure does make it a lot easier to program! The main body of the robot is 3D-printed, and it includes everything you need to get up and running. It’s easy to build and, once built, you can have fun changing the code and customising it. Made specifically for beginners, we…