Duke's 20-Limbed Argus Robot Bounces Like a Beach Ball on Legs

Researchers at Duke University's General Robotics Lab have unveiled Argus, a 20-limbed omnidirectional robot funded by DARPA that moves by extending and retracting its legs symmetrically to exert forces in any direction. Named for the many-eyed giant of Greek mythology, the symmetric design lets it bounce and tumble across terrain in ways quadruped or humanoid robots cannot match. The team has released an open-source simulator on GitHub so researchers can explore configurations with different limb counts. Even builds with as few as twelve effectors demonstrate useful mobility, making Argus a platform for studying mechanical redundancy — a property DARPA prizes in robust field-deployed autonomous systems.

Sources: Hackaday

Maker Spends Six Months Building a Fully Functional FDM Printer From Wood

[Mitsu Makes] has completed a six-month build of a functional FDM printer with a predominantly wooden frame, challenging the assumption that structural parts must be steel or aluminium. The printer is based on the Voron 0 design, with linear rails, lead screws, automatic bed leveling, and input shaping calibration. A Cartesian motion system replaces CoreXY for simpler construction and greater axis torque via additional motors. While non-structural components — mainly black PLA parts — supplement the stained wood panelling, the result is striking. The printer works correctly after assembly and input shaping calibration, and Mitsu notes it could be the focal point of any 3D printing workspace.

Sources: Hackaday

Open-Source E-Bike Display Uses Reflective LCD for Full-Sunlight Readability

[Volos Projects] has published an open-source e-bike display build using a reflective LCD, a display type that bounces ambient light back toward the viewer instead of transmitting a backlit image. Standard transmissive LCDs wash out in direct sunlight, but the reflective variant remains clearly readable outdoors — a critical property for cycling instruments. The build uses a Waveshare ESP32-based reflective LCD board integrated into a test stand simulating an e-bike's speed sensor, turn signals, and other inputs. Display source code is available on GitHub. The project offers makers a practical, low-cost alternative to expensive transflective industrial panels for DIY e-bike and outdoor electronics projects.

Sources: Hackaday

Agatha Mallett Builds a 4-Bit Relay Logic Counter Using D-Type Flip-Flops

[Agatha Mallett] turned a batch of relays with undocumented pinouts into a working 4-bit counter using relay logic, with indicator LEDs and buttons for incrementing, clearing, or individually setting bits. The core technique holds each relay coil voltage precisely between its energize and release thresholds, creating D-type flip-flop behavior: a small positive voltage pulse closes the relay and a negative spike opens it. Component tolerances required per-relay adjustments to resistors and capacitors before achieving reliable operation. Agatha has written up the memory cell design separately, making it a useful reference for anyone interested in building binary logic from electromechanical components rather than silicon.

Sources: Hackaday

PiBrick Packs a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 Into a 3D-Printed Pocket Computer

[Ahmad Amarullah] has released PiBrick, a smartphone-sized handheld computer built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, featuring a 3.92-inch OLED touchscreen and a BlackBerry-derived physical keyboard. PCB layout, 3D-printable shell files, and firmware are available on OSHWLab and GitHub under the Pocket-CM5 project name. A custom PCB consolidates all peripheral connections and houses a 5,000 mAh battery. Unlike earlier Pi handheld builds that compromised on durability, PiBrick prioritises robustness and versatility, running a full Debian-based Linux distribution on the CM5's quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 processor. The project sets a high standard for what a community-designed open-hardware pocket computer can achieve in 2026.

Sources: Hackaday

Maker Tests Loading Sega Genesis ROMs From a Vinyl Record Using RP2350

[Throaty Mumbo] has demonstrated loading Sega Genesis ROMs from audio media using a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 board with an RP2350 microcontroller, which decodes audio-encoded binary data and transmits it via USB to a Mega Everdrive Pro cartridge. Testing confirmed the technique works with a conventional tape drive. Switching to a Teenage Engineering PO-80 5-inch vinyl cutter and player revealed the PO-80 lacks sufficient audio bandwidth to encode the rapid bit transitions the RP2350 expects. Despite this partial failure, the project demonstrates that with higher-quality record equipment, vinyl-loaded Genesis ROMs are technically feasible — albeit at only a few kilobytes per second.

Sources: Hackaday

Cornell ECE Students Replicate Bletchley Park's Enigma Codebreaking on an FPGA

Students Erica Jiang, Kelvin Resch, and Isabella Frank in Cornell University's ECE 5760 course have built a complete FPGA implementation of the World War II Bombe machine used at Bletchley Park to break Enigma cipher traffic. FPGAs suit the task well because fixed parallel gate logic executes cryptographic permutation searches far faster than software on a general-purpose CPU. The project emulates the full Bletchley decryption apparatus — not just the Bombe — and is accompanied by detailed documentation and a demo video. Though Enigma-cracking is trivially light for a modern FPGA, the Cornell project is a technically rigorous reconstruction of a pivotal moment in computing history.

Sources: Hackaday

Hackaday Launches Frikkin Lasers Contest: $150 DigiKey Prize for Laser Projects

Hackaday has opened the Frikkin Lasers Contest on Hackaday.io, offering three prizes of a $150 DigiKey gift certificate each for the best laser-based maker projects submitted before July 23, 2026. The contest spans three categories: Lightshow (projectors, RGB laser rigs, mirror displays), DIY (homebrew laser devices, constant-current diode drivers, dye lasers), and With Remaining Eye (functional laser tools including cutters, data links, and safety systems). Any project documented on Hackaday.io and entered via the contest pulldown menu is eligible. The contest is open to makers worldwide, giving teams nearly two months to build and document laser projects of any scale, from simple diode rigs to full cutting systems.

Sources: Hackaday

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