Ep059: Hydraulic Rockets & Presses, Machine Vision Bounces & Stares, Smart Speakers Listen to You

Hackaday Podcast · 19 Mar 2020 · 1h 04m

What this episode covers

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss several hardware hacks, including Joe Barnard’s silo-launched thrust-vectoring model rocket, which required solving pneumatic timing and sensor failures, and Graham Jessup’s 3D-printed robotic face with machine vision tracking. They also cover Daniel Riley’s solar-powered rover, which overcame steering and traction issues through iterative frame modifications, and a robotic ball bouncer using a parallel manipulator and OpenCV. The episode concludes with an analysis of smart speaker false activations and a discussion of Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle, a space tow truck designed to extend satellite life in geosynchronous orbit.

Mentioned

Companies
Hackaday, Northrop Grumman
Products
Game Boy, Amazon Echo, Google Home, Mission Extension Vehicle, IntelSat 901, SodaStream, Lego
Chips
ESP8266, Teensy 4.0, NEMA 17
Tools
OpenCV, Unity, Hedra, QMK

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