The Amp Hour · 9 Oct 2025 · 46m · Episode 705
Dave Jones and Chris Gammell discuss the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, highlighting the booming private space industry, the availability of 'space lube', and the surprising demand for payloads on Firefly's Moon Lander. They then shift to maker culture, exploring the Gridfinity modular storage system, 3D printing workflows with the Creality K1, and the resurgence of the Commodore 64. The episode concludes with Dave Jones detailing his DIY installation of a 75 kWh home battery system, including the construction of a reinforced concrete slab to support the heavy racks.
makers and hobbyists
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Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams discuss a wide range of DIY projects, including a 3D-printed thermoacoustic Stirling engine, optical reading of MOD tracker files, and home fabrication of LEDs. They also cover the history of space stations, from the fictional 'Brick Moon' to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, and review a talk by Catherine Dietrich on designing usable PCB props for Dungeons & Dragons.
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos discuss the successful landing of India's Chandrayaan-3, the Roland TR 808 cowbell sound, and a series of community hacks including clay extruders and cyberdecks. The episode features interviews with Mitch Altman and Jens Olig about the 'Hackers on a Plane' initiative at Chaos Communications Camp 2007, which catalyzed the second wave of American hacker spaces like Noise Bridge and Hack DC through the 'Hacker Space Design Patterns' document.
Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams review 2018 trends, highlighting the rise of private space exploration with SpaceX's reusable rocket nose cone recovery and the 'year of the FPGA' driven by open-source toolchains like IceStorm and soft cores like RISC-V. They discuss the explosion of 'badge life' in the maker community, where hackers produce custom conference badges and 'shitty add-on' headers, and note the shift in home automation toward Wi-Fi and MQTT. The episode concludes with their favorite hacks, including a garage-built IC by Sam's Aloof, a self-solving Rubik's cube, and analog mechanical keyboards.
Hosts Chris White and Elecia White discuss recent projects and gift ideas, including Elecia's work on the Fitbit Surge and Chris's 'Wordy' wearable ring. They also cover Chris's custom hardware controller for the game Kerbal Space Program, the Chiptronics educational kit, and the broader maker movement, addressing misconceptions about its impact on professional engineering.
Jimmy Diresta, Bob Clagett, and David Picciuto discuss their current projects, including Jimmy's 3D-printed Star Wars helmet and Bob's hot dog inlay table, while reflecting on the importance of community and maintaining a positive attitude in the maker world. They share personal stories about quitting their day jobs to pursue YouTube full-time, the challenges of shipping and logistics, and the difficulty of finding one's creative voice. The hosts also answer audience questions regarding buyer's remorse on tools like the ShopBot and Delta 3D printer, and the complexities of collaboration and branding.
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