May 2024 Maker News Roundup
Things are hotting up, summer is definitely on it’s way. It's time for our super hot off the press May 2024 Maker News Roundup!
Welcome to the May 2024 roundup
I say this every month, but it feels like this month is the best ever. So many interesting videos to watch and articles to read. Where does it all come from? The answer is YOU - all the content here has come from the fantastic maker community.
From superchat driven bubble machines to a tribute to the Z80, we’ve got machine learning for robotics, LED craziness, small-scale manufacturing compliance, I2C auto discovery, tiny second monitors… - there’s something here for everyone.
So, put your soldering iron down for a few minutes and settle in for a good watch and read.
Things to watch
I’m forever blowing bubbles…
Well, to be more accurate the audience of the mellow_labs live streams are. He’s on a mission to give his audience control of more things in his streams and they can now set off a bubble machine via superchats.
Long live the open source Z80!
I can’t be the only one who was deeply moved by the announcement that the Z80 would no longer be manufactured. But don’t despair - the Zero To ASIC Course has you covered with an open source version built on top of Tiny Tapeout!
2024 Open hardware summit
If you’re like me and would have loved to attend this in person, but just couldn’t get to Canada, don’t despair - all the talks can be found here!
Maker central 2023
Yes, you read the title correctly - 2023 - it’s taken a year for NotEnoughTech to actually produce this video, but it’s well worth the wait!
Stereo images to depth disparity
This is very cool - getting depth data from stereo image is pretty crucial for a lot of robotics projects. It’s something that you can use machine learning to do - but you need data to train your models. Jonathon R couldn’t find any. So he made some himself!
What do you do with 1024 LEDs?
Well if you are atomic14 you shine them right in your eyes and then wander around bumping into things. But you also do some projects. In this case it’s an upgrade to an old flame lamp project.
“Hello and welcome back…”
James Sharman is back again with more work on moving more of his machine off of breadboard and onto PCBs. He can now run all the core functionality without having breadboards hanging off the side.
DIY 256-Core RISC-V super computer
He’s at it again - bitluni is continuing his efforts to build his very own “super computer”. He’s made himself a DIY 256-Core RISC-V machine! Check out the specs in the video description - it’s actually pretty impressive!
Open Source Analog ASIC design
I’m pretty comfortable with digital design, but when it comes to analog design, I’m pretty much out of my depth. So this video from Psychogenic Technologies is perfectly timed!
Smander update
You may not be aware of this, but one of our usual contributors has been working on a side project for a while. I know quite a few of our readers will either be customers or sellers on sites like Tindie and Lectronz.
For small manufacturing runs and little hobby kits there’s a tendency to skirt around things like CE certification - or even any kind of compliance testing. It’s a lot of work and it’s really expensive.
Smander aims to change that and make it easy for makers and small businesses to get their products tested and certified. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to stick the CE logo on your next product?
You can keep up to date with their progress by signing up to their newsletter here.
Things to read
Will it run MicroPython?
“I got a Playdate – not because I am much interested in playing games on it, but because I thought it was a neat piece of hardware and was impressed by the maker spirit behind its creation. When the Playdate arrived, the question arose naturally: Can I put MicroPython on it to run PewPew games?” - find out the answer in this fascinating blog post.
DeskOps
I guess it’s inevitable - standing desks have some control electronics, it’s only natural for makers to want to tinker with them. Kevin has decided that he wants his sitting and standing session to be scheduled. Time to hack the brains of a standing desk.
Everyone needs a second monitor
I couldn’t live without my second monitor, but this second monitor might not be that useful… file this under “we did it because we could” category… but it is an impressive bit of hacking.
React for circuits
I now a lot of us are holding down full time jobs as well as being makers - this will be of interest to anyone who does any front end work using React - how about using React for defining schematics and PCBs?
Plug and play I2C?
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just plug an I2C peripheral in and it just works? That’s exactly what Rob is building into his Raft framework. I think this is a project that’s definitely worth keeping an eye on. Even as I’m putting the finishing touches to this newsletter there’s a follow up post - he’s now auto generated the code needed to talk to the I2C devices. This is getting very interesting indeed.
ESP32 drum synth machine
Do you have some friends or relatives with kids? This looks like the perfect gift for the child :)
The CORDIC algorithm
Would you believe me if I told you that sin, cos and friends could all be calculated without floating point using simple additions and bit shifts? This is a fascinating explanation of the CORDIC algorithm and how it can be made really efficient.
Closing thoughts
Another month, another bumper newsletter packed full of videos and articles. If you enjoyed it, then please share it with your friends:
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As always, thanks for watching. Any comments for feedback, let us know. We want to know what you think!