Desktop Digitizer Makes Note Capture a Breeze

While it might seem quaint these days, we’ve met many makers and hackers who reach for a pen and a pad when learning something new or working their way through some technical problem. But even if you’re the type of person who thinks best when writing something out on paper, there’s still a good chance that you’ll eventually want to bring those notes and sketches into the digital realm. That’s where things can get a little tricky.

[Spencer Adams-Rand] recently wrote in with his clever solution for capturing written notes and pushing them into Notion, but the hardware design and digitization...

The Kentucky Cave Wars, and Going Viral in 1925

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=EBjAcHu0kSA

Floyd Collins, the unfortunate star of this post. (Public Domain)

Information, it seems, flows at the speed of media. In the old days, information traveled with people on ships or horses, so if, say, a battle was won or lost, it could be months or even years before anyone back home knew what happened. While books and movable type let people store information, they still moved at the speed people moved. Before the telegraph, there were attempts to use things like semaphores to speed the flow of information,  but those were generally limited to line-of-sight operations. Carrier pigeons were handy, but...

Emergency Bolt-Action Launcher for EpiPens

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=veZvQduDRtg

Imagine you and your friend are enjoying a nice sunny day, and BAM — they start to have a severe allergic reaction to who knows what. You have an EpiPen, but your friend is on the other side of a field! The solution? Obviously [Emily The Engineer] has only one option: build an entire EpiPen launcher!

Starting off the life-saving project, [Emily] prototyped with a 3D printed blank and a simple solenoid-controlled glorified potato cannon. This proved effective, as one would expect of such a project after successful tests on a human subject. However, there was one simple problem: what if...

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D27 is an ultra-compact, low-power SBC based on Microchip SAMA5D57 SiP

Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D27  is an ultra-compact (70x50mm) single board computer (SBC) powered by a Microchip SAMA5D27 Arm Cortex-A5 processor microprocessor clocked at 500 MHz paired with 256MB LPDDR2 (system-in-package). The board also features a microSD card slot and EEPROM for storage/configuration, Fast Ethernet, WiFi 4, and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, a USB-C port, two GPIO headers, and supports USB and battery power. It’s designed for IoT devices, smart systems, and edge computing applications. Conclusive Engineering KSTR-SAMA5D7 specifications: SiP –  Microchip SAMA5D27 CPU – Arm Cortex-A5 microprocessor @ 500 MHz System Memory – 256 MB LPDDR2 Storage MicroSD card slot 4KB EEPROM...

Trying to Build Your Own Consumer-Grade Router in 2026

Although we have many types of networking equipment with many unique names, at their core they can usually be reduced to just a computer with some specific peripherals. This is especially the case for something like a router, a device found in just about any home these days. Certain consumer-grade routers may contain something special like a VDSL modem, but most of them just have a WAN Ethernet jack on one end and one or more LAN-facing Ethernet ports.

All further functionality is implemented in software, including any firewall, routing and DHCP features. What this means is that any old PC...

Optocam Zero’s Pictures Look One Hundred

Yeah, we know, there’s a camera on your phone that does this and that. But these days its become trendy to turn towards older digital cameras in place of smartphones, and we can tell you from experience, that the joys of having a dedicated photographing contraption are many.

There’s plenty of cheap digital cameras on the secondhand market, but instead of fending off the clothes bros and other reseller types at the thrift store, stay home and build [Doruk Kumkumoğlu]’s Optocam Zero. Inspired by the Kodak Charmera and the like, [Doruk] aimed for something that’s playful, enjoyable, and intuitive to use.

Optocam...

ADLINK OSM-MTK520 – A MediaTek Genio 520-based OSM Size-L system-on-module

ADLINK OSM-MTK520 is a 45 x 45mm OSM Size-L system-on-module (SoM) powered by a MediaTek Genio 520 AIoT processor with a 10 TOPS NPU for Edge AI workloads. It’s basically an upgrade to the company’s OSM-MTK510 OSM Size-L module with a Genio 510 hexa-core SoC (3.2 TOPS NPU), up to 32GB eMMC flash, and 8GB LPDDR4 with a Genio 520 octa-core SoC (10 TOPS NPU), up to 256GB or 512GB UFS 3.1 storage, and up to 16GB LPDDR5 memory. There are also some minor changes to I/Os with an extra USB OTG interface, DisplayPort instead of HDMI, an extra MIPI...

Robot Bird Decoys Work for Good

Usually, you think of bird decoys as being a tool to lure birds to an untimely encounter with a hunter. However, [Interesting Engineering] has a story about robotic bird decoys in Grand Teton National Park that are helping restore the dwindling number of sage grouse in the park.

While some decoys are static, others are motorized to replicate mating rituals. The goal: lure real birds to safer areas to breed. Particularly, they want the birds to avoid areas around the Jackson Hole Airport. The robots are built with help from local students and robotics teams. While some of the construction is...

Cooking a Raspberry Pi FireWire HAT With Backfeeding

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=CrPyf6chtVg

Recently [Jeff Geerling] has been tinkering with FireWire in order to use some older gear, which includes the use of a Raspberry Pi HAT called the Firehat. This provides a 6-pin FireWire port courtesy of the VIA VT6315N PCIe-to-FireWire chipset. As is typical with USB gear today as well, some FireWire gear requires more power than a port can provide, requiring the use of a powered hub. Unfortunately the use of a powered FireWire hub caused a bit of a conflagration event on [Jeff]’s desk.

Part of the issue appears to be that this Firehat board was designed as a companion...

Intel Core Ultra X7 358H-powered open robotics development system targets humanoid robots and autonomous vehicles

AAEON CEXD-INTRBL is an “open robotics development system” powered by a 16-core, 180 TOPS Intel Core Ultra X7 Processor 358H (Panther Lake) SoC and designed for the development of AI-enhanced humanoid robots and autonomous vehicle platforms. The Edge AI computer features four 2.5GbE ports with support for IEEE1588 PTP (Precision Time Protocol), two FAKRA connectors for up to eight GMSL2 cameras, four USB 3.2  Type-C ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a CAN Bus connector, and a 40-pin HAT connector with 22 GPIOs. AAEON CEXD-INTRBL specifications: SoC – Intel Core Ultra X7 358H CPU – 16-core (4P + 8E + 4LPE)...