community news
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A Homemade Approach to Long-Range Night Vision Most infrared night-vision systems are limited to relatively short distances mainly because standard IR LEDs spread light too widely to be effective over long ranges. Curious about the practical limits of infrared imaging, the independent engineering channel Project 326 developed a custom-built system aimed at long-range nighttime observation. The system combined a modified low cost… |
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Unitree Unveils $650,000 Pilotable Mecha Robot Chinese robotics company Unitree has launched the GD01, a giant pilotable mecha robot priced at $650,000. The Hangzhou-based startup, known for producing humanoid and four-legged robots, revealed the product in a promotional video. The company confirmed to WIRED that the GD01 is a real product available for purchase. The GD01 weighs 500 kilograms and is capable of walking, crouching,… |
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What Happens When You Build a Private Network Just to Track Cows? A development team recently built a custom long-range livestock tracking system designed specifically for farms located in mountainous regions with poor cellular coverage. Instead of relying on standard GPS trackers that require 4G connectivity, the project uses a private LoRa-based communication network to help farmers monitor cattle positions in real time. The complete setup consists of… |
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Clock Uses Water Bottles as Pixels With Membrane Pumps and Servos Maker Strange Inventions has built a water-based digital clock in which 60 small bottles act as individual pixels, collectively forming numerals to display the time. The bottles, sourced at 10 cents each, brought the total project cost to approximately $580. Each bottle is filled or emptied with dyed water to switch its pixel state on or off, with the display controlled by a microcontroller… |
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ESP32-Powered Laser Projector Brings Retro Vector Graphics Back to Life A new DIY laser projector project from breq.dev is getting attention in the maker community for mixing old-school vector graphics with modern embedded hardware. Built by Brooke Chalmers and Mia Kiesman, the system uses a pair of galvanometer mirrors to steer RGB laser beams and draw graphics directly in the air. Instead of using a normal display panel, the projector creates smooth vector-style… |
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Arduino Obstacle-Avoiding Robot Rebuilt 7 Times Larger A Youtube channel named UncleStem has taken DIY robotics to a completely new level by building a giant obstacle-avoiding robot powered by a fully functional oversized Arduino Uno. The project recreates a classic Arduino obstacle avoidance robot at seven times the original size while still maintaining real working electronics inside. From giant DC motors and oversized jumper wires to a massive… |
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Building Rocky From Project Hail Mary in Real Life Leviathan Engineering, a tech-focused YouTube channel, has recreated Rocky from Project Hail Mary as a real AI-powered robot by combining mechanical design, on-device speech recognition, and modern AI that responds in real time. The robot runs on a Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB RAM) and uses 10 MG996R servo motors for movement. A major part of what makes this build impressive is the software… |
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New Robotics Training Method Helps Simulated Skills Work in Reality Researchers at Aston University have developed a new AI-based robot training approach aimed at reducing the long-standing “sim-to-real” gap in robotics. The work focuses on improving how robots transfer skills learned in simulation into unpredictable real-world environments, where differences in material properties, sensor noise, and physical interaction often cause systems to fail despite… |
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The One-Motor Robot That Can Move in All Directions Is it possible to control a robot using only one motor? yes, a popular YouTube channel, Pro Know, has done a simple yet innovative robot that can move forward, backward, left, and right all with a single motor. Traditionally, robots depend on differential drive systems or steering mechanisms that require multiple motors. However, this project showing how smart design and control logic can… |
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Conversational Baymax Robot with Animatronics and AI Integration Maker Brae Barnes is developing a conversational Baymax-style robot that combines animatronic motion with an AI-driven speech system. The current prototype focuses on the head assembly, featuring articulated neck movement, blinking eyelids, and the ability to respond to spoken input using a speech-processing pipeline. The goal is to create a robot that not only talks but also conveys… |
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FalCAN Probe Simplifying CAN Bus, UART, and RS-485 Debugging for Engineers The FalCAN Probe is an open-source communication and debugging tool created by Anders B. Nielsen to simplify testing in automotive electronics, industrial automation, and embedded systems. It works as a powerful bridge between a computer and hardware devices using popular communication protocols such as UART, CAN Bus, RS-422, and RS-485. These protocols are widely used in car diagnostics, CNC… |
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AI Robot Outplays Elite Table Tennis Players With Its 20-ms Reaction Time Sony AI Zurich has unveiled Project ACE, a Revolutionary physical AI system that can compete with and even outperform elite human table tennis players. Led by engineer Peter Dürr , the project pushes artificial intelligence beyond simulations and into the real world, proving that AI can now operate at the extreme speeds required for professional sports. Table tennis is considered one of… |
