Engineering-first robotics, AI, maker hardware, STEM, and creator technology reporting
PORTLAND, Ore. — For builders who prefer a clean terminal over a busy browser, Shellbeats offers a focused way to listen to YouTube audio without the overhead of a GUI. …
Play YouTube audio from the terminal with Shellbeats Read More
From early fatalities in automated plants to today’s ISO 10218 standards, robot safety has been earned the hard way. Here’s what builders, shop leads, and open-source roboticists can implement right now to keep humans out of harm’s way.
Industrial Robot Safety Was Written in Blood—Lessons for Makers Read More
PORTSMOUTH, UK — When James set out to make a toy tractor that actually drives around the garden, he kept the design honest: simple lines, stout construction, and parts you …
Toybox Tractor: 350W build with plywood, lathe hacks Read More
A ROS 2-driven ArmPi Ultra paired with YOLO11n on Raspberry Pi 5 shows reliable, fluid waste sorting with 3D-aware detection and precise motion control. The build leans on a clean data-to-action pipeline and adds optional natural-language control for task-level commands.
YOLO11 Meets ArmPi Ultra for Real-Time AI Waste Sorting Read More
Pimmich is an open-source smart photo frame that runs entirely offline on a Raspberry Pi, keeping your photos private while delivering a polished, living-room-ready slideshow. A web interface handles setup, imports, filters, Wi‑Fi, and scheduling—no cloud account required.
Build Pimmich: A Local-Only Raspberry Pi Smart Photo Frame Read More
Synth makers Abraham and Maria dug into Sega Genesis VGM files and organized more than 93,000 YM2612/YM3438 presets into a searchable, playable archive. Their open project, DAFMExplorer, surfaces seven recurring sound families and offers export-ready banks for real hardware and trackers.
DAFMExplorer maps 93k Genesis presets into 7 sonic realms Read More
Particle announced Tuesday it will be acquired by Digi International, the company behind the XBee modules that inspired Particle’s early path. The deal brings maker-first rapid prototyping and industrial-grade wireless under one roof, with Particle founder Zach Supalla staying on to advance that shared vision.
Particle to be acquired by Digi, creators of the XBee Read More
Ken Shirriff peels back the 8086 to show how microcode and lookup tables configure its ALU—a classic CISC design that still echoes in modern tools. For makers, it’s a clear, die-level walkthrough that connects retrocomputing to FPGA-era thinking.
Intel 8086 ALU Explained: Microcode and LUTs at Work Read More