Samwise Makers' News
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Berm Peak Builds ESP32 Wireless Brakes With ABS for Fat-Tire Bike
[Berm Peak] has built an ESP32-based wireless braking system for a fat-tire bicycle, demonstrating capabilities well beyond a simple wire replacement. The system uses ESP32 microcontrollers to handle lever inputs and control front and rear brakes through actuators repurposed from car door locks, paired with springs from the stock calipers to provide a wide range of braking force. Beyond basic braking, the build includes a working anti-lock braking system, a braking equalizer that controls force distribution per lever position, and remote capability to slow a child's bike from a parent's handlebars. A “derp” mode delays brake engagement until a configurable threshold is reached.
Motorized Planer Height Adjustment Brings CNC-Like Control to the Workshop
[DendroLabsDev] grew tired of the many turns required to move a planer's height adjustment wheel from its lowest to highest position, so what started as a quick hack has become a full-time motorized control system. A stepper motor capable of approximately 1,000 steps per inch drives the adjustment, enabling very small tolerances to be dialed in consistently. The system has been programmed with several modes: one planes boards to a target thickness over multiple passes, another zeros the position, a third saves height adjustments for replication across boards, and a fourth steps through a set amount per pass.
Compact 3D-Printed PCB Vise Uses Under 70g of Leftover Filament
[Chefkoch] designed a compact 3D-printed PCB vise and solder station that uses less than 70 grams of filament—a clever way to turn leftover spool remnants into a useful bench tool. The design uses the solder spool itself as a counterweight, providing stability in an otherwise compact footprint. The jaw assembly can be reconfigured to hold workpieces either horizontally or vertically, with the solder spool positioned conveniently in either orientation. The entire build requires no additional hardware or fasteners beyond the printed parts, and design files are available on MakerWorld for anyone who wants to put their own filament scraps to work.
Offline Wikipedia Browsing Arrives on the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display
Maker Alun Morris has put offline Wikipedia browsing on an ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display, turning the inexpensive board into a handheld reference library. The CYD carries an ESP32, a resistive touchscreen, and an SD card slot—and a modern SD card has enough capacity to hold a full Wikipedia dump with images included. Morris processes the offline Wikipedia builds from the Kiwix project into a custom format suited for a browser firmware running on the ESP32. The resulting device can browse Wikipedia content entirely offline with no network connection required, making it useful in environments where internet access isn't available.
German Designer Creates Fabric Pattern That Fools AI Person-Detection Systems
German designer Simon Weckert has created a fabric whose pattern is mathematically optimized to confuse AI image recognition systems into failing to identify the wearer as a person. Object recognition networks scan images for statistical patterns—combinations of edges, textures, and colors associated with the category “person”—and Weckert's design targets those algorithms with saturated, high-contrast shapes intended to break the continuity of the body's outline, preventing the detector from binding the parts into a single recognized figure. Testing showed the approach works against the targeted systems, though the vibrant pattern makes the wearer immediately conspicuous to any human observer.
Firehat Open-Source FireWire HAT Brings MiniDV Capture to Raspberry Pi 5
Computer Equipment Group has launched Firehat, a fully open-source FireWire HAT designed for single-board computers with a Raspberry Pi PCIe FFC connector, including the Pi 5 and Radxa ROCK 2F. Built around a VIA VT6315N controller, the board connects via a PCIe 2.0 FFC link and a 40-pin GPIO header for power, providing a six-pin IEEE 1394 port for capturing footage from MiniDV, Digital8, DVCAM, DVCPRO, and HDV camcorders. The design includes a 1.3-inch OLED display and three tactile buttons. KiCad schematics and PCB layouts are released under the CERN OHL-S license; software under GPL. The Crowd Supply campaign targets $7,500, with a $79 base pledge.
Sources: Adafruit Blog
Hackaday Addresses AI-Generated Code in Maker Projects: Human Hacks First
Hackaday editor Elliot Williams has published an editorial on where the site stands as LLM-generated code becomes a growing part of many maker projects. Williams explains that Hackaday is pro-human, focused on hackers and the hacks, with a community made of people, and that Hackaday produces all of its content the old-fashioned way, through the taste and judgment of its writers. The piece raises the question of whether Hackaday should track what percentage of a submitted project was human-created versus machine-generated, reflecting the broader tension in the maker community between embracing AI tools and preserving the hands-on craft of building things yourself.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
HeyGears G1 Series — $13M+ raised (Kickstarter, ends Sept 11)
Beni Camera Robot — $2.95M raised (Kickstarter, ends Sept 6)
Hanboost T1 Laser Engraver — $700K+ raised (Kickstarter)
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
earlephilhower/arduino-pico — 2.8k★ RP2040/RP2350 Arduino core
geerlingguy/raspberry-pi-pcie-devices — Pi PCIe device tracker (Firehat added)
Computer-Equipment-Group/firehat — New OSHW IEEE 1394 HAT firmware
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Yukon — August 29–30, 2026 (Whitehorse, Yukon)
Maker Faire Bay Area — September 25–27, 2026 (Vallejo, CA)
Hackaday Supercon 2026 — November 6–8, 2026 (Pasadena, CA)
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency