Tag: Open Source

As the name suggests, the Dorkpod looks pretty dorky. It’s designed to transport dorks to and fro and is available in a variety of options for makers of any skill level. It comes from Tinkersmiths Makerspace and is an open source DIY vertical personal electric vehicle.

There are various features of Tesla’s cars that can be activated using mobile apps. If you have a compatible garage door opener, you can even have a Tesla vehicle enter or exit your garage with just a few taps. 

Synesthesia is a rare condition wherein a sensory input consistently activates multiple senses or emotions. Some synesthetes see colors when they see a particular letter or number. Others have their sense of taste activated when they hear a word.

You might not know it, but Play-Doh and similarly made modeling clay are conductive, which makes them a great way to introduce electronics to kids. Squishy Circuits has kits and recipes for both conductive and insulating clay.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to makers that single board computers and the DIY devices based on them need control interfaces that are simpler and faster to use than desktop peripherals or even full-on PCs. Pičugins Arsenijs believes he’s come up with a much simpler alternative.

UDOO makes some of the most popular Arduino-compatible development boards. Now the company is branching out with a dev board that can run desktop operating systems. But the UDOO X86 doesn’t just have Intel inside, it has an entire Arduino board inside it as well.

We’ve seen a Raspberry Pi used as the basis for a normal-sized laptop, but maker Node managed to cram a Pi 2, a keyboard and a 3.5″ touchscreen into a case that’s roughly the size of a Nintendo DS.

You may know programmer Feross Aboukhadijeh from his real-time YouTube search page YouTube Instant. But Feross has been working on something much bigger called WebTorrent. It’s a JavaScript torrent client for web browsers that uses WebRTC, an API that lets browsers share data without additional plugins.

Thingiverse member Targ was inspired by a fellow designer dutchmogul’s 3D printed rattle mace and made a pair of sword rattles for his baby. Each sword is made of five pieces. Targ printed all of them using PLA filament, with the exception of the jewel, which is made of Taulman’s T-Glase filament.

Set and forget cameras like action cameras and dash cams expanded the applications of video cameras. But action cameras can be pricey, while dash cams are not versatile. If you’re looking for a cheap, user-friendly and open source alternative, check out Armstart’s WiCAM.

You might remember Dave Hakkens as the man who popularized the idea of modular smartphones with his Phonebloks concept. He’s back with another environment-friendly movement, and this time he has a more concrete solution. Together with his friends, Dave setup Precious Plastic, which are DIY plastic recycling machines.

The Internet of Things isn’t just about connecting your garage door to your car or your fridge to Amazon. It can also be about connecting your smartphone to a flamethrower, as SparkFun’s Nick Poole shows in a DIY project that he made to promote their new ESP8266 Thing dev board.

Three years ago I used one of my cooler puns on the Photon 3D scanner, which I called cheap because you could snag it from its crowdfunding campaign for $390 (USD). CowTech Engineering’s $99 Ciclop 3D scanner takes that crown in a lop-sided price war, and supposedly without sacrificing on quality.

Steel Crate Games’ bomb defusal party game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (KTANE) was one of the first popular killer apps for virtual reality headsets. Now available via Steam and the Humble Store, the game no longer requires a VR headset to play, but it still requires at least two players.

PiBorg specializes in motor controllers and sensors for the Raspberry Pi, as well as robot kits based on the affordable computer. The company’s latest controller is for the tiny Raspberry Pi Zero, one that’s equally compact yet will let you manage up to 12 motors.

One of the most tedious parts of setting up a new computer is transferring your files and applications from your old computer. If you’re a gamer, that process becomes even more tedious depending on how many games you want to move or re-download.