Samwise Makers' News
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Open-Source Webcam + WebHID App Auto-Docks Steam Controller
Ray Foss built an open-source web app that uses WebHID and a laptop webcam to autonomously dock a Steam Controller to its magnetic charging puck — no human hands required. The key mechanism is asymmetric haptic motor pulsing that exploits slip-stick friction: firing the left and right rumble motors at different intensities causes the controller to inch in a chosen direction across a flat surface. Computer vision handles obstacle detection and steers the approach, while a charge-detection routine confirms successful docking. The project runs entirely client-side in a browser with WebHID support. Source code is freely available on GitHub.
3D-Printed Displacement Sensor Hits 2-Micron Repeatability
BubsBuilds constructed a displacement sensor capable of resolving motion down to two microns using almost entirely 3D-printed parts. The design centres on a slender stylus tipped with a knife-edge blade that travels through a symmetrical flexure — a spring-like structure that keeps lateral forces predictable. As the stylus moves, the blade partially blocks an opto-interrupter (a paired LED and photodiode), converting displacement into a proportional analogue voltage. Careful symmetry in the flexure design cancels thermal drift and off-axis loads. Total cost is a fraction of commercial alternatives, and the STL files are freely available for any desktop FDM printer.
DIY Brass-Mounted Laser Achieves Single-Mode Fibre Coupling
Diffraction Limited machined a compact fibre-coupling mount from brass bar stock, marrying a low-cost laser diode to a single-mode optical fibre — the kind of component that costs thousands from commercial vendors. The critical challenge is focusing the diode beam into a three-micron fibre core; an aspheric lens handles the optics. UV adhesive used to lock the alignment shrank on curing and shifted the beam off-axis. The fix was a set of tiny set screws under a mounting pin, enabling post-cure fine-tuning. The finished unit achieves stable single-mode coupling, unlocking low-budget interferometry and holography experiments on the maker's bench.
Oomwoo Is an Open-Source, 3D-Printable, Offline Robot Vacuum
Maker's Pet has announced oomwoo, a fully open-source robot vacuum you can build yourself with a 3D printer and off-the-shelf electronics. The design runs ROS 2 on a Raspberry Pi 5 — or an ESP32 for a leaner build — uses 2D LiDAR for mapping, and integrates with Home Assistant for completely offline smart-home control with no cloud account required. The project's motivation is explicit: after Ecovacs robot vacuums were remotely hijacked live at DEF CON 32, the maker community wanted an alternative with a fully transparent codebase. The first Bill of Materials for self-builders is expected in mid-July, licensed Apache 2.0.
Sources: Tom's Hardware Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
DIY Bioethanol: From Table Sugar to Fuel at ~$9.91/Gallon
Hyperspace Pirate demonstrates DIY bioethanol production starting from table sugar, using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast fermentation followed by reflux distillation. Fermentation converts roughly 54 percent of input sucrose to ethanol; the remainder becomes carbon dioxide. A purpose-built reflux column concentrates the output to near-azeotropic purity. Running the numbers at Florida utility rates of $0.12 per kilowatt-hour and retail sugar pricing, the finished fuel costs approximately $2.62 per litre — about $9.91 per US gallon — plus 2.57 kWh of electricity per litre. More expensive than pump gasoline today, but the project documents every step, making it a detailed biofuel chemistry reference.
Python Indexing Bug Casts New Doubt on Microsoft's Majorana Qubit Claims
A new Nature paper by physicist Henry Legg raises fresh doubts about Microsoft Azure Quantum's topological qubit programme. Legg's analysis identifies a Python indexing error in the data pipeline behind Microsoft's Topological Gap Protocol: an array index was used in place of the corresponding value, a bug that introduced selective confirmation bias into the measurements used to claim evidence of Majorana zero modes. Microsoft's official response acknowledges an off-by-one pixel error in a figure but maintains its underlying conclusions remain valid. The dispute continues a years-long pattern of external scrutiny challenging the extraordinary claims behind the Majorana approach to fault-tolerant quantum computing.
HamsterOS Packs a 32-Bit GUI OS onto a Single 1.44 MB Floppy
Indie developer Mean Hamster is building HamsterOS, a 32-bit graphical operating system that fits entirely on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk and targets 386 and 486-era PCs. The desktop environment includes a notepad, image viewer, calculator, file manager, and a VM86 DOS compatibility layer that can run FreeDOS and legacy software. File system support covers FAT 12, 16, and 32; audio uses the SoundBlaster 16 standard. The OS uses cooperative multitasking and targets collectors and retro-computing enthusiasts wanting a modern-feeling environment on vintage hardware. A November 2026 release is planned, though licensing suggests it will likely ship as closed-source commercial software.
Sources: Tom's Hardware Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
60 Hz E-Ink Game Boy Handheld Built on a $7 ESP32-S3 Dev Board
Wenting Zhang of Modos Labs built a Game Boy emulator on the M5Stack PaperS3 development board — an ESP32-S3 paired with a 4.7-inch 960×540 e-ink display — and pushed the notoriously slow e-ink technology to a full 60 Hz refresh rate. The technique treats each cluster of e-ink pixels as an independent region, a method borrowed from FPGA display engineering, and triples the original 160×144 Game Boy pixel grid to fill the larger panel. The ESP32-S3's second core runs exclusively on ordered dithering to keep motion smooth. The build supports Bluetooth LE controllers and touchscreen quick-save buttons. The PaperS3 board has since been discontinued, making this a rare machine.
Sources: Tom's Hardware Share ↗ ✉︎ Email 💬 Text
Top Crowdfunding
Crowd Supply / Kickstarter
1. Modos Flow — e-ink monitor, 309% funded ($542K)
2. MiciMike Home Mini PCB — HA voice, 1,307% funded
3. QuadRF — 4×4 MIMO SDR tile, 157% funded ($157K)
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. maker-pet/oomwoo — new open-source robot vacuum ★
2. espressif/arduino-esp32 — Arduino Core for ESP32
3. micropython/micropython — embedded Python runtime
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Hamamatsu — Jul 4, Hamamatsu, Japan
Teardown 2026 (Crowd Supply) — Jul 24–26, Portland OR
Maker Faire Rome 2026 — Oct 23–25, Rome, Italy
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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