Samwise Makers' News
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Bike-Powered Shredder Tackles 3D Printer Plastic Waste
Donald Papp at Hackaday reported on June 16 that Brogan M. Pratt and his students built a bike-powered plastic shredder that converts human pedaling into the force needed to break waste plastic into small bits. The group does a lot of 3D printing and generates significant plastic waste, and shredding is the necessary first step before any reprocessing into new filament or stock. Between the bicycle and the shredder sits a large gear reduction, a fifteen-kilogram flywheel, and a heavy-duty frame to anchor everything against the considerable mass and torque involved. Pratt frames the build as both practical and educational for students.
Sources: Hackaday
Researcher Exploits Honda Civic Infotainment Using AOSP Test Keys
Maya Posch at Hackaday detailed on June 16 how researcher Eric McDonald reverse-engineered the Android-based infotainment system in a 2021 Honda Civic. McDonald found that the head unit, running an older Android Open Source Project build, can be updated over USB using standard AOSP test keys that were left present on the file system. Because those publicly known test keys are accepted, anyone with physical access to the in-car USB port can in theory load and run arbitrary code signed with them. McDonald calls the technique the EvilValet attack, since a valet or anyone briefly alone with the vehicle could exploit it.
Sources: Hackaday
ADLINK COM-HPC-mPTL Module Packs 180 TOPS Panther Lake Silicon
CNX Software reported on June 16 that ADLINK introduced the COM-HPC-mPTL, a COM-HPC R1.3 Mini computer-on-module built around Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake family, topping out with a 16-core Core Ultra X7 358H rated at up to 180 TOPS. The module supports up to 64GB of LPDDR5x and optional BGA NVMe SSD storage, and carries two 2.5GbE controllers, optional MIPI CSI camera connectors, and a 40-pin debug header. All I/O routes through a 400-pin board-to-board connector, including four display interfaces and up to 16 PCIe Gen4/Gen5 lanes. ADLINK lists support for Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
Sources: CNX Software
AMD Opens Pre-Orders for $4,000 Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform
CNX Software reported on June 16 that AMD has opened pre-orders for its Ryzen AI Halo Developer Platform, a first-party reference system built on the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor delivering up to 126 TOPS. Priced at $3,999.99 at Micro Center, it ships with 128GB of LPDDR5x memory and a 2TB NVMe SSD, plus 10GbE and Wi-Fi 7 networking, HDMI 2.1, and USB-C DisplayPort output. The Max+ 395 is a chiplet design pairing two eight-core Zen 5 dies with an integrated RDNA 3.5 GPU and XDNA 2 NPU over a 256-bit bus. The system runs Windows 11 or Linux for AI workloads.
Sources: CNX Software
OneThingCloud OEC Box Pays Users for Spare Home Bandwidth
CNX Software covered on June 16 the OneThingCloud OneThing Edge Cube (OEC), a small home device built around the Rockchip RK3566 SoC and running Android that turns a user’s spare internet bandwidth into passive income. Buyers install the OEC or OEC-Turbo at home, where it joins a distributed peer-to-peer content delivery network, caching data for other nearby nodes. The hardware has no user-facing functionality beyond participating in the CDN. CNX Software notes the model resembles HoneyGain, a comparable service that operates outside China and requires only an app rather than dedicated hardware. The writeup examines the device’s specifications and the bandwidth-sharing economics behind it.
Sources: CNX Software
Maker Builds Animatronic Velociraptor With Moving Eyes and Snapping Jaw
The Adafruit blog highlighted on June 16 an animatronic velociraptor built by maker Magic Marcus, who documented the project in detail on Hackster.io. Rather than a static sculpture, the build began with the goal of an animated dinosaur head featuring moving eyes and a snapping jaw. The head was 3D printed in PET-G filament using FDM technology, then fitted with the mechanisms that drive its motion. Adafruit notes the project drew interest tied to Jurassic Park screenings. The documentation walks through the design choices behind the moving components, making it a reference point for other makers attempting articulated animatronic heads of their own.
Sources: Adafruit
Raspberry Pi Begins Beta Testing a Refreshed Desktop With Icon Dock
The Adafruit blog reported on June 16 that the Raspberry Pi team is rolling out a refreshed desktop for beta testing. The Raspberry Pi Desktop began over a decade ago as a customized LXDE environment and has since evolved into a Wayland and labwc-based desktop, with little visually in common with the original LXDE. The look has been refreshed several times with new icons, themes, and backgrounds. Beta testers can install the new desktop components from the beta repository. According to the post, the biggest change in the refreshed desktop is the introduction of an icon dock alongside the existing taskbar.
Sources: Adafruit
Hackaday Traces the Long History of Unix Commands on Windows
Al Williams at Hackaday published a piece on June 16 examining how commands like ls, cat, grep, and awk now frequently work in a Windows terminal, something that was not always true. The article traces the history of bringing Unix-style command-line utilities to the Windows platform, returning to the CoreUtils story to chart how these tools became commonplace. It walks through the various efforts over the years that made the familiar Unix toolset available to Windows users, framing the present state where typing a classic Unix command on Windows has a good chance of doing something useful. The piece is part of Hackaday’s ongoing software coverage.
Sources: Hackaday
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. EKOS ESP32-S3 ePaper Dashboard — $17,410 goal, Kickstarter
2. Open Analog transistor-level IC kits — live, Kickstarter
3. Wireless-Tag ESP32P4C61-TINY board — live, Kickstarter
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