HackSpace #61

Even if you don’t consider yourself a geek, learning to code (even a little bit) can open up huge new possibilities Programming is one of the core maker skills and, like many skills, it doesn’t need to be difficult. With wood working, for example, it takes years to master the skills of fine joinery, but you can go from beginner to making something useful in a few hours (even if there are a few gaps in the joints and you’re relying on brackets to hold it together). It’s the same with programming. You don’t have to master everything to create something useful, and in a few hours you can join the bits together to make something that works. Even if you don’t consider yourself a geek, learning to code (even…

hsmag.cc/PeasantKnife We’ll admit that we hadn’t heard of the Svörd Peasant Knife, seen here complete with laser-engraved handle by Artful Dabbler. It’s a model of a non-locking folding knife based on designs from 17th-century Bohemia and Bavaria, and in its modern incarnation, it’s extremely popular in New Zealand. Peasants everywhere like to decorate their belongings, so it seems only right to bring the tendency bang up-to-date with a spot of laser engraving. The ancestors would approve.…

hsmag.cc/3D-PrintedGenerator We’ve seen 3D-printed generators before: highly technical, superbly accurate, and made for a specific purpose. This one is different: it’s extremely simple. And we say that in a good way; the simplicity is what makes the design so compelling. All you need to make this is a 3D printer and some easily accessible hardware parts, such as nuts, bolts, a wire, and magnets. The bit that generates the electrical current is actually the smallest part of this model; most of it is a 64:1 ratio gearbox, meaning that for every turn of the handle, the rotor (that’s the part with the six magnets attached to it) spins 64 times, which is enough to generate 12V of current.…

hsmag.cc/GeigerCounter Here’s a simple but useful project: an internet  connected Geiger counter. Its creator, Dmytro Panin, lives in Kyiv, Ukraine, not far from the site of the Chornobyl nuclear reactor and its associated fallout zone. Understandably, Dmytro wants to keep an eye on local radiation levels. The build consists of an M4011 Geiger sensor connected to a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which sends the readings to a server every few hours. Dmytro’s also included a 128 × 64 pixel OLED screen to display readings, for those rare occasions when he isn’t glued to the internet.…

hsmag.cc/GlowStitch Sewable electronics is an incredibly creative field, with loads of cosplay applications. It’s also an area that’s attractive to people who might not otherwise be interested in electronics, as it falls so far outside the stereotypical green PCB + wires aesthetic that it would be virtually unrecognisable to an electronics enthusiast from even ten years ago. One barrier to entry to sewable electronics has always been the difficulty of getting conductive thread to work with sewing machines. It’s something you might never think of, but if you speak fluent sewing machine, you’re not going to want to drop that and go back to hand stitching just to get glowing LEDs on your clothes. That’s where GlowStitch LEDs fit in. They are – and the importance of this cannot be…

hsmag.cc/JagerMachine The JägerMachine is, according to its maker Pegor, “an IoT shot-pouring machine powered by Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. It features a full GUI that allows the user to configure the device, pour a shot, and also check previous messages sent to the machine. Once paired with its own Gmail account, the JägerMachine waits for emails containing a secret user-defined subject line and a custom message that gets displayed on the screen. Once an email is received, a shot is poured.” Brilliant. It started as a daft idea for a gift for a friend’s birthday (the pair exchange Jägermeister-related gifts as a joke), and has gone from a boxy design in Fusion 360 to a fully functioning oblivion dispenser.…