Hackaday Podcast 245: The Silver Swan, ET’s Umbrella Antenna, Model Tanks vs Space Shuttle Tires [Hackaday]

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This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi link up through the magic of the Internet to go over some of their favorite stories from the last week. After revealing the bone-chilling winners of this year’s Halloween contest, the discussion switches over to old-timey automatons, receiving deep space transmissions with a homebrew antenna that would make E.T. proud, and the treasures that can be found while poking around in a modern car’s CAN bus.

They’ll also go over how NASA saved the taxpayers a bunch of money by hacking a remote controlled WWII tank, CNC controlled microscopes, and a cinema-quality camera you can probably build from what you’ve already got in the parts bin. Finally, they’ll detail an ambitious effort to recreate an old computer’s motherboard with a new feature in KiCad, and muse over all the interesting things that become possible once your test equipment can talk to your computer.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download and enjoy listening with a cold turkey sandwich.

Episode 245 Show Notes:

News:

• 2023 Halloween Hackfest: This Year’s Spooky Winners

What’s that Sound?

• This week’s sound was an automatic wire stripper! Congratulations to [Adrian] for the spot-on guess!
• It doesn’t embed well, but here’s the original video source: IMG_9076.mov

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Restoring The Silver Swan Automaton
• Umbrella Antenna Protects You From Rain, But Not The Way You Think
  • Need A Low-Mass Antenna In Space? Just Blow It Up!
  • Tune Your Dish Antenna Like A Pro
• Simple CMOS Circuit Allows Power And Data Over Twisted-Pair Wiring
• That Time NASA Built A Tiny Tank To Pop Shuttle Tires
• Keeping A Mazda’s Radio On After The Engine Shuts Off
  • This ESP32 CAN!
• Fixing Astronomy In The Blink Of An Eye

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • LiPo Replacement Keeps Portable Scanner In The Action
  • Pi-lomar Puts An Observatory In Your Hands
  • CNC Plus Microscope Plus Game Controller Equals Awesome
• Tom’s Picks:
  • A Brand-New Antique Radio
  • CinePi Project Promises Open Source Movie Making
  • Bringing Back The CRT TV Experience In Software

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• How To Talk To Your Scope
  • Amazing All-Band Receiver
• Revive A Sony Vaio P-Series With KiCad’s Background Bitmaps