Table of contents for #78 in HackSpace

What does the future hold? It’s one of those impossible questions that is so inviting, and sometimes seems straightforward. However, if you try to pin down the future, it becomes slippery. Who had a global chip shortage in their predictions for the early 2020s? Still, we’re trying to pin down a few people with a good insight into the field of maker technology and find out what they think is going to happen. But before you turn the pages and find out what they have to say, have a bit of a think. What do you think is going to happen? Will the future be 3D-printed, or will that remain geeks only? Will AI change everything, or is it just another fad? What do I predict? I predict that whatever…

hsmag.cc/BatteryMonitor The internet is cluttered with pointless devices, promising convenience but offering little more than outdated software, security vulnerabilities, and subscription services offering an umbilical link to companies that can put up prices when they feel like it or even go bust. This IoT battery charger by Liz Clarke, Kattni Rembor, and the Ruiz brothers avoids all these pitfalls. For one, it’s built using open-source hardware and software, so should Adafruit vanish tomorrow, it’ll still work. And in contrast to many other IoT devices, it’s actually useful. This is a pretty simple build, beautifully executed: it’s just an Adafruit ESP32-S2 Reverse TFT Feather (a Feather word with a built-in TFT screen) and a MAX17048 LiPoly battery monitor chip. The chip detects your battery’s charge, and the Feather displays it on…

Predicting the future is fraught with problems – we’re still waiting for flying cars to become the norm. Still, we’ll give it a go… We’ve consulted some movers and shakers on how things may change in the makersphere over the next few years. Will making become more mainstream? What trends are we likely to see in the fields of SBCs, microcontrollers, robotics, and 3D printing? What does the future hold for open-source hardware? And will the emergence of AI affect how makers go about creating projects? Looking ahead towards the next five to ten years in the makersphere, the experts we consulted were able to point out some emerging trends. First of all, on a cautionary note, Limor Fried hopes there won’t be another chip shortage, “as that really set…

Generations of British kids got their first taste of making things through Airfix kits. These cheap, extruded plastic model kits of WWII-era vehicles brought the Hawker Hurricane, Mitsubishi Zero, Messerschmitt, Spitfire, and more into homes up and down the land for pocket money prices. Some painted them meticulously; some threw them out of windows to find out if their model aeroplanes would actually fly. They did not fly! Stian Ervik Wahlvåg, aka agepbiz, has taken this idea and run with it in the shape of this overly complicated business card. Rather than injection moulding, Stian’s used a Bambu Lab X1-Carbon 3D printer to produce a four-colour model of the parts of a toy jeep. For the packaging, he’s printed a design onto card, which he’s cut out using a Silhouette…

The world of the future is a largely cashless society, but the world of today still uses metal tokens and paper promises to facilitate transactions. In an urban store you’ll probably find an electronic point of sale (EPOS) system that handles the shopping experience, but when you’re on a market stall away from regular power, the conventional EPOS experience isn’t as easy to implement. In this article, you’ll see how to create a working cash register with a secure money drawer, barcode scanner, and receipt printer. You’ll get it all running from a Raspberry Pi and DeWalt battery, and you’ll also have a built-in daily transaction log, and the option to use any wireless device as an extra till display. CALCULATOR WITH CONTROL ISSUES Cash register and EPOS system are really…

PART 02 In the last article, we discovered how ROS 2 applications are structured and how components can communicate using publish and subscribe. In this article, we are going to build on this to make the robot move, and then we are going to discover how we can add a sensor to determine the distance and direction of movement. ROBOT CONTROL The robot kit is from Hiwonder (hiwonder.com). It uses a HAT which fits on the Raspberry Pi driving the robot. The HAT drives the motors and servos and is controlled by Python code supplied by Hiwonder. It works well, but the author was keen to use ROS 2 with the robot, so the first step was to convert the motor driving code into a ROS 2 node with the original…

Kits! Anyone who knows me, knows I love kits. It’s how almost everyone gets into soldering and electronics. I manufactured electronic kits for many years and, at times, I really miss it. I loved the process of prototyping and figuring out what people would like to build. And even though I don’t create and sell kits any more, I do still love to pick some up and spend some time building other people’s creations. In this Best of Breed, I will be looking at some kits that are not only fun, but useful too. That second part, usefulness, is often overlooked. I really enjoy building something and then being able to use it for a long period of time afterwards. Not just blinky little LED things, although those are fun…

hsmag.cc/Mellow_Labs File this one firmly under ‘do not try at home’. Unless you have the skills, patience, and safety protocols in place to make what is essentially a DIY flamethrower. It’s not just a flamethrower, however, it’s a subscriber counter that shoots fireballs for every ten new YouTube subscribers. Maker Tomasz wanted to celebrate his friend Dan’s new YouTube channel, so he built him something tangible to encourage him to increase his online following. Rather than gifting Dan with something pedestrian like a numerical display ticking upwards as your follower count grows, Tomasz took inspiration from the name of his friend’s YouTube channel: Gears, Code, and Fire. The final product combines all three of the elements: gears, some code, and the aforementioned incredibly dangerous fire. Before the internet, one of…

hsmag.cc/Storper As a child, Jo Hinchliffe used to love playing with Stomper 4WD cars – small, battery-powered vehicles that could climb seemingly anything. Now, as an adult, he’s made his own version, powered by Raspberry Pi Pico and for sale on Tindie at pocket money prices. At just $16, this is a cheap way to get into robotics. It’s not a full kit – you’ll need to supply your own N20-style motors, wheels, and your own Raspberry Pi Pico which gives you programmability, elevating StoRPer from a 4WD vehicle to a robot. The PCB includes four motor drivers, giving users the flexibility to drive the robot how they see fit. You could, for example, keep it simple and attach one motor per wheel. Or you could take advantage of the ability…

I magined in 1829 by Louis Braille, Braille is a tactile alphabet for blind and partially sighted people. Made of a grid of six dots, each Braille cell corresponds to a letter or an escape code to specify a capital, number, or punctuation mark. As each cell consists of six dots, there are 64 combinations available. Due to the limited number of combinations, each country has adopted its own Braille standard. The usage of computers and information technology shows the need for a better standard with more combinations. Since the start of the 21st century, we also have eight-dot Braille standards. At this time, eight-dot standards are used only on numerical devices, such as Braille displays. MAKING A BRAILLE DOT When creating Braille documents, a simple method is to use a…

ON TOPS OF THE WORLD That robot dog in issue 77 – wow. That’s a massive achievement for one person. Well done Aaed Musa. I wish I had the dedication to make something like that. Both the hardware and the software look like they must have been a real struggle to get right. Congratulations on an awesome build! Mark Telford Ben says: I completely agree. It’s finished off with a level of polish that puts many of us to shame. TINY TAPEOUT I don’t normally write in to magazines, but Tiny Tapeout just knocked my socks off. I can’t believe that it’s not only possible for a hobbyist to design a chip (or a part thereof), but reasonably achievable for mere mortals. I can’t wait to get started. Sam Hull…

Despite the best efforts of the gods of rain, the winter is finally coming to an end. Plants are sprouting all around – ones we planted and ones we haven’t. This author has decided to turn his attention to generally making his home a little greener and much more flavourful. Plants, like all life, are amazing replicators. Inside each seed is a tiny spool of cellulose filament and a solar-powered print head capable of squirting out this building block into exactly the right shape for that species (OK, we’re computer nerds rather than biology nerds, and might have got that bit wrong). This makes us think that they’re perfect partners for a bit of 3D printing. The two big problems we’ve had with herbs are that there are quite a…

■ Get game design tips and tricks from the masters■ Explore the code listing and find out how they work■ Download and play game examples by Eben Upton■ Learn how to code your own games with Pygame Zero Available now hsmag.cc/store…

M5STACK → $29.90 | hsmag.cc/cardputer The Card Computer, also known as the Cardputer, is an expansion of the M5StampS3. This base board has an ESP32-S3, which has a dual-core Tensilica processor running at up to 240MHz with 512kB of RAM, 8MB of flash, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. Onto this removable board is a 56-key keyboard, 1 W I2S amp with speaker, 1.14 inch IPS screen, microphone, and 1400mAh battery. You can also add more hardware via a Grove connector. All of this comes in a sturdy plastic case which features Lego-compatible mounts and magnets for attaching to, well, anything ferrous. This is a huge amount of hardware for the price, so it should come as no surprise that it does have limitations: the 240 × 135 pixel screen is…

Some time ago, Robert MacLaren had an idea to create a treasure hunt using RFID (radio-frequency identification) cards and an MP3 player module. Now, thanks to an Arduino Nano, a DFRobot speech synthesis module, and a lovely custom case featuring threaded inserts melted into 3D-printed plastic, it’s here. Using tech to update old games is a great way to get kids accustomed to things that go beep and bleep. Using your own tech, that you’ve made yourself, is even better – it exposes young minds to the possibilities that a soldering iron can unlock, and most importantly of all, it earns you serious Brownie points.…

hsmag.cc/MarbleClock We mastered clocks a while ago. Each iteration on the clock is basically an art piece. Polished brass, Nixie tubes, even fancy Rolex wrist watches – for anyone with a phone in their pocket, they’re all obsolete, but they look brilliant. Joining the ranks of useless beauty is this creation from Sakati1984. They’ve used a Raspberry Pi Pico, 227 marbles, twelve servos, two metal rods, and a handful of other components to create this fully functional clock. Rather than selecting balls on the fly to represent the characters, the machine relies on the balls being in the right order, making this useful for telling the time, but not for displaying live data. The refresh rate is also seven seconds, so there’s no point adding a seconds counter – for that,…

hsmag.cc/UniversalRemote Reddit user Armerdan needed a device to replace an old Logitech Harmony 512 universal remote. Like an absolute genius, they decided to model the replacement device on a ‘1950s sci-fi death-ray blaster-type thing’. If you squint hard enough, you can make out that this device, which is based on an Arduino Pro Micro, uses an enclosure from a guitar effects pedal. What might escape you at second glance is that the antenna is made from a couple of transparent plastic yo-yos that have been drilled out, topped off with a drawer knob. The maker isn’t 100% happy with how this device looks (even though it looks awesome!). The joystick, while functional, isn’t in keeping with the aesthetic they’re going for, so in the near future, that’ll probably be replaced…

Even if you haven’t heard of him, if you’re into 3D printing you’ve almost certainly used something created by Sanjay Mortimer, or else have used products based on his ideas. Sanjay was a co-founder of E3D, manufacturer of 3D printer parts, and the decisions he took at the start of his career in 3D printing literally shaped the industry – the standard nozzle for FDM printers is 0.4 mm because Sanjay had that size drill bit in his toolbox at the time, for example. After Sanjay died in 2021, those who knew and loved him (more on that later) decided to honour his memory by helping neurodivergent people find their place in engineering, an area that Sanjay loved. Since then, the Sanjay Mortimer Foundation has worked with E3D to put on…

In this final project of the KiCad series, we’re going to adapt our RP2040 layout to make a rudimentary weather station. The PCB will host an AHT20 sensor, which is a good-quality sensor that can detect both temperature and humidity via I2C. It’s made by the same company that created the venerable DHT22, which has long been a popular sensor for this type of project. Scouring the JLCPCB parts library revealed that they have two versions of the AHT20 in surface-mount packages. It’s important to double-check components carefully, as one of the options (the F variant) was built so that the vent hole for the sensor was placed underneath the package, so required a very accurate footprint that included a matching hole through the PCB under the footprint. With our correct…

The first thing that you usually learn when doing electronics with a microcontroller is blink an LED. The second is connecting a button. In this article, we’re going to take this second skill and use it to build a peripheral for a computer. There are surprisingly large stacks of software between the switch on a keyboard and the program you use it to control. Fortunately, though, we don’t have to concern ourselves with them. We can grab some pre-written firmware, adjust a bit of configuration, and then have everything ‘just work’. Buttons come in many different shapes and sizes, but they mostly do the same job – bring two contacts together when you press them. For our microcontroller to read the state of the button, we just have to connect it…

We saw an excellent tutorial from Adafruit on making some animatronic wings: hsmag.cc/AdafruitWings. They looked awesome! The only problem was, we didn’t have the parts needed to make them. Obviously, we could have ordered all the parts we needed from those good folks in New York, but we did have a lot of similar parts. We wanted to know, could we reproduce the wings using just what we had hanging around the workshop left over from previous projects? Re-using stuff you have is a great practice to get into. It’s cheaper, better for the environment, and means you can make stuff now rather than waiting for a delivery (and this can be key to finishing a project rather than ending up with a pile of half-finished projects). It does sometimes…

ESPRUINO → £76.80 | shop.espruino.com There are two sides to any bit of electronics: the hardware and the software. On the Bangle.js 2, both are worth a close look. There is no such thing as perfect hardware – especially on a device as constrained as a smartwatch. There is simply hardware that makes trade-offs – for some users, those trade-offs will be good, and for others, they won’t. Any smartwatch has to find the right balance between features and power consumption. By far the hungriest bit of kit on a smartwatch is the screen. Producing light takes power. A 60mA backlight might be insignificant to a mains-powered device, but it’ll kill a watch in just a few hours. However, a bright, crisp display needs these photons. The Bangle.js 2 keeps…