Samwise Makers' News
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Brandon Lai Designs Custom Cycloidal Actuators for DIY Humanoid Robot
Brandon Lai is building a humanoid robot from scratch and, rather than rely on off-the-shelf components, designed his own actuators from the ground up. Inspired by an MIT research paper, Lai modified the original design by swapping the planetary gearbox for a cycloidal variant, targeting 40 to 60 rpm with a sustained 20 Newton-meters of torque running continuously for up to one hour. He fabricated and tested the prototype, documenting both successes and failures in detail on Hackaday. The project is notable for tackling one of the hardest mechanical challenges in robot construction — producing compact, high-torque, low-speed drives without sourcing expensive proprietary parts.
Sources: Hackaday
Steampunk Tachyscope Uses Century-Old Vacuum Tubes for 360° Laser Oscilloscope Display
Daniel Ross entered the Hackaday 2026 Frikkin Lasers Contest with a 360-degree oscilloscope display called the Tachyscope. The build uses a helium-neon laser tube — a rarity in an era dominated by solid-state diodes — shining up a hollow shaft onto a galvanometer mirror mounted on a platform spinning at roughly 100 RPM. Line-level audio feeds a power amplifier built from four UV-201 vacuum tubes dating back over a century. The galvanometer sweeps the beam across a translucent cylindrical target, generating waveform images by persistence of vision as the platform rotates. A multi-pole slip ring carries signals between the stationary electronics and the spinning display assembly.
Sources: Hackaday
SCINTIX P4 Brings ESP32-P4 Compute Module Compatibility to Raspberry Pi CM4 and CM5 Boards
The SCINTIX P4 is a new crowdfunding campaign offering a compute module based on Espressif’s ESP32-P4 chip that slots into Raspberry Pi CM4 and CM5 carrier boards. The module pairs the ESP32-P4’s dual-core Xtensa LX9 processor and RISC-V coprocessor with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and enhanced HMI capabilities, targeting developers who want AI-assisted display and camera processing on existing CM4-compatible hardware. The design maintains compatibility with most CM4 and CM5 carrier boards, though the campaign notes a caveat for certain configurations. SCINTIX P4 is aimed at makers seeking an affordable path to ESP32-P4 functionality without migrating their current hardware platform.
Sources: CNX Software
Zhihe A210 Octa-Core RISC-V SoC with 12 TOPS NPU Powers Compact SoM Dev Board
Zhihe’s A210 is an octa-core RISC-V system-on-chip integrating a 12 TOPS neural processing unit, now powering a compact system-on-module development board aimed at edge AI applications. The SoC combines eight RISC-V cores with a high-performance NPU configuration uncommon in maker-accessible RISC-V hardware, making the A210 notable for embedded vision, voice recognition, and inference workloads. The development board exposes standard peripheral interfaces for rapid prototyping. RISC-V continues gaining traction in embedded development as an open architecture alternative to Arm, and the A210’s 12 TOPS NPU marks a significant step in performance for boards targeting makers and independent hardware developers.
Sources: CNX Software
Markforged Adds Four New Colors to Its Onyx GF Industrial 3D Printing Material Line
Markforged has expanded its Onyx GF material lineup with four new color options for the chopped glass fiber-filled nylon used exclusively in its FX-series industrial 3D printers. The addition gives the material, known for stiffness and dimensional stability, greater visual flexibility for customer-facing parts and prototypes that would otherwise require painting. Onyx GF delivers improved surface quality over standard Onyx, with the glass fiber fill providing enhanced rigidity compared to unfilled nylon. The new colors follow growing demand from product designers using industrial-grade filament printers for end-use components. Exact color names and updated material pricing were not disclosed in the announcement covered by All3DP.
Sources: All3DP
Rockchip RK3539 Quad-Core Cortex-A55 SoC Debuts in Low-Cost Android 14 4K TV Stick with AV1 Support
A new low-cost Android 14 TV stick has appeared featuring the Rockchip RK3539, a quad-core Cortex-A55 system-on-chip marking the chip’s debut in a consumer device. The stick delivers 4K output with hardware AV1 codec decode support, placing it competitively in the budget streaming hardware market. For makers and single-board computer enthusiasts, the RK3539 platform is notable given Rockchip’s consistent track record of releasing hackable development boards alongside consumer product launches. AV1 hardware decode is a meaningful addition as the codec becomes standard across streaming services. Full connectivity specifications including USB, HDMI, and wireless interfaces were published by CNX Software following the device’s announcement.
Sources: CNX Software
Amlogic A311Y3 Targets Edge AI with Cortex-A78 Cores, 8 TOPS NPU, and LPDDR5 Memory
Amlogic has announced the A311Y3, an octa-core system-on-chip combining Cortex-A78 and Cortex-A55 CPU clusters with an 8 TOPS neural processing unit and LPDDR5 memory support. The chip targets edge AI compute for smart cameras, robotics, and intelligent IoT devices, following the market traction of Amlogic’s widely used A311D chip found in boards such as the Khadas VIM3. LPDDR5 support provides a substantial memory bandwidth improvement for NPU inference tasks compared to LPDDR4-equipped predecessors. CNX Software published specifications covering codec support, peripheral interfaces, and display output capabilities. The A311Y3 positions Amlogic competitively in the 8 TOPS edge performance tier alongside competing silicon from Rockchip and NXP.
Sources: CNX Software
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. nLab All-in-One Electronics Lab — from $169, Kickstarter
2. SCINTIX P4 ESP32-P4 Compute Module — campaign live
3. None confirmed this week
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. espressif/arduino-esp32 — Arduino core for ESP32 SoCs
2. davidmonterocrespo24/velxio — browser-based Arduino/ESP32/Pi emulator
3. esphome/esphome — config-based ESP32/RP2040 home automation
Upcoming Events
Hackaday Frikkin Lasers Contest — closes July 23, 2026 (online)
Hackaday Supercon 2026 — November, Pasadena, CA (dates TBD)
Maker Faire Rome 2026 — October 23–25, Rome, Italy
Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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