Big Tactile Button Is Silly But Cool

Every hacker is familiar with those teeny little tactile buttons that are so enjoyable to click over and over again. [ROBO HUB] has built a giant version as a tribute, and it works just like the re…

Hackaday Prize 2023: Tiny RC Aircraft Built Using Foam And ESP12

Once upon a time, a radio controlled plane was a hefty and complex thing. They required small nitro engines, support equipment, and relatively heavy RC electronics. Times have changed since then, a…

Rubik’s Cube Solver Does It In 4.56 Seconds

Solving Rubik’s Cubes is a learnable skill. However, to compete at the top level, you’ll have to train hard. Speed cubers can solve a 3×3 cube in under ten seconds these days, afte…

Magic 8 Ball Provides Tech Support

ChatGPT might be making the news these days for being able to answer basically any question it’s asked, those of us who are a little older remember a much simpler technology that did about th…

A LEGO Camera You Just Might Own Yourself

A camera makes for an interesting build for anyone, because it’s an extremely accessible technology that can be made from materials as simple as cardboard. More robust cameras often require s…

Working Artificial Horizon Built Into A Single Lego Brick

Back in the day, Lego spaceship sets used to come with these little wedge blocks painted with fake spaceship gauges on them. [“Ancient” James Brown] decided that wasn’t good enoug…

DOOM Ported To A Single LEGO Brick

By now you’ve all seen the tiny LEGO brick with a working screen in it. The work of one [James “Ancient” Brown], it was truly a masterpiece of miniaturization and creativity. Sinc…

Modded See ‘N Say Teaches The Sounds Of City Life

The Fisher-Price See ‘n Say was introduced back in 1964, and since then has helped teach countless children the different sounds made by farm animals. But what about our urban youth? If they&…

The Last Meccano Factory Is To Close. Will We Miss It?

If we were to talk to engineers about the childhood toys which most inspired them, it’s likely that the older among them would mention either Meccano or Erector Set. These similar constructio…

High-Contrast Images For Hacker Family Harmonics

There’s a new addition to the Adafruit family, and it’s not a microcontroller board as you’d expect – however, we will still find plenty to learn from. On the Adafruit blog,…

Domino Ring Machine Tips Tiles In A Never-ending Wave

Like to see dominoes fall? [JK Brickworks] has got what you need, in the form of a never-ending ring of falling and resetting tiles. LEGO pieces are the star in this assembly, which uses a circular…

Modulex Is LEGO’s Long Lost Cousin

We love LEGO here at Hackaday, but did you know that LEGO spun off a parallel product line made for architectural models called Modulex? [Peter Dibble] takes us on a deep dive through the history o…

Model Train Delivers Fresh Coffee

Model trains are good fun, though few of them serve any purpose beyond amusement or authentic railway simulation. [ProjectAir] decided to put his model train to practical use by having it deliver f…

Dad Builds Frickin’ Tank For His Son

We gotta love hacker Dads and Moms for being so awesome. Sooner or later, their kids get to play with some amazing toy that every other kid on the block is jealous of. [Meanwhile in the Garage aka …

I’ve Been Printing On The Dragon Railroad…

We know many people who put much effort into building model train setups. But [Rambros] has an entire set 3D printed, and the files are open source, so you can print your own or modify it to suit y…

RC Car Gets F1-Style DRS Rear Wing

DRS, or the Drag Reduction System, has become a key part of Formula 1 in the past decade. [Engineering After Hours] decided to implement the same system on an RC car instead. The DRS system was imp…

CUTTING CABLES CURES TANGLED CORD CHAOS

The Toniebox is a toy that plays stories and songs for kids to listen to. Audio content can be changed by placing different NFC enabled characters that magnetically attach to the top of the toy. It…

ESPHome Powers Festive Lego Train Set

While the basic concept of LEGO bricks might have changed little since the mid-20th century, some components such as motors and sensors are still affected by technological progress and end up obsol…

A Concealed Model Railway Rises To The Occasion

Occasional pieces of furniture serve little purpose other than to fill a space and maybe display a prized ornament or two. Who hasn’t got a relative with one two many small tables or display …

Silicone-Slapping Servos Solve Simon Says

Most modern computer games have a clearly-defined end, but many classics like Pac-man and Duck Hunt can go on indefinitely, limited only by technical constraints such as memory size. One would thin…