Samwise Makers' News
Saturday, August 15, 2026
MegCell Pulse: Twin 3D-Printed Guitar Robots Debut After Six-Year Build
A maker known as Bruce has spent six years designing and building the MegCell Pulse, twin 3D-printed robots that perform acoustic guitar music as a coordinated pair. One robot handles all fretting while the second plucks using six individual plectrums. The mechanical assembly uses gears, magnetic actuators, and 3D-printed arms that interpret digital tablature input. Current limitations include an inability to traverse the full guitar fretboard or slide between frets. The project is now on Kickstarter: a $100 pledge gets backers a digital plans package covering STL files, an assembly guide, control software, and a full parts list.
ETH Zurich Students Build Submersible Drone to Measure Ice Thickness
Engineering students at ETH Zurich have built a submersible drone designed to measure ice thickness from below. The vehicle is slightly positively buoyant and uses two concrete ballasts for depth control, with six propulsion motors providing full 6-degree-of-freedom maneuverability. An NVIDIA Jetson module handles autonomous operation, while navigation depends on GPS and Short Baseline (SBL) hydrophones. The team initially tested a sonar dual-return method for measuring ice, but ultimately relied on a pressure-based approach, lowering the drone until it contacted the ice bottom and recording depth. The project was developed as a student initiative at the Zurich institution.
Maker Automates Baby Bouncy Chair with Arduino Nano and Servo Motor
Ceyhun Karatış has automated a BabyBjörn bouncy chair using an Arduino Nano microcontroller, a Futaba S3003 servo motor, and a custom 3D-printed mounting bracket. A string mechanism attached to the servo pulls the seat downward while a spring returns it upward, creating a continuous, gentle bouncing motion. Two potentiometers mounted on the bracket let parents independently adjust both the speed and amplitude of the movement. The build attaches to the existing chair without permanent modification. Karatış has released the STL files and full build instructions on Thingiverse for anyone looking to replicate the automated rocker.
Octopus 16: Open 16-Channel EEG Headset Enables Brain-Computer Interaction
Researchers Ildar Rakhmatulin and Youssef El Abbass have designed the Octopus 16, a compact 16-channel non-invasive EEG headset for makers. The device uses 16 electrodes arranged in a pogo-pin cluster configuration, feeding into two Texas Instruments ADS131M08 analog-to-digital converters — eight channels each at 24-bit resolution. An ESP32 microcontroller handles data transmission over Bluetooth Low Energy to a connected device running the PiEEG software platform. The team demonstrated the system detecting a user’s focus state and using that signal to control simple game environments. The project is designed to make brain-computer interface development more accessible to hardware makers.
Maker Decrypts Flume Water Monitor Traffic with Man-in-the-Middle Relay
A hacker known as Stephen has built a tool to intercept and locally log data from a Flume smart water monitor. The Flume system sends usage data through a bridge unit to cloud servers. Stephen first discovered corrupting the device’s public key in flash memory forces plaintext output, but breaks server authentication. Deeper investigation into the LibHydrogen library revealed the device authenticates using only a static secret key stored in flash — not session keys — enabling a man-in-the-middle relay. The tool, called flumewatch and available on GitHub, logs all local water flow data while forwarding traffic normally to Flume’s servers.
ShieldFont Poisons AI Scrapers by Substituting Font Ligatures in Web Text
Designers Isaque Seneda and Gabriel Abrucio released ShieldFont on July 30, 2026, an open-source typeface that poisons AI training datasets by corrupting how web pages look to scrapers. The font substitutes around 24.4 percent of words with ligature-based versions: the rendered text appears normal to human readers, but the underlying HTML presents grammatically valid gibberish that automated quality filters reject at over 90 percent. A protected list of 113 core terms — articles, pronouns, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs — is never substituted, keeping readability intact. The project includes React components and uses aria-hidden attributes for screen reader compatibility.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. CardputerZero (M5Stack) — HK$14.96M raised — Kickstarter
2. CyberBrick: Beyond Bricks (MakerWorld) — Kickstarter
3. MegCell Pulse Guitar Robots — from $100 plans — Kickstarter
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