student wear,uniforms

much of the world appears to revolve around sports, as well as sports tracking is a quite huge business. So exactly how do people keep up with their preferred team? Well, [Jackson] as well as [Mourad] made a decision to devise a custom-made IoT solution.

Their system is a bit convoluted, so bear with us. First, they tell Alexa whether or not the team won or lost that week. Alexa then sends that info to IFTTT where two different Particle Argon boards are regularly polling the results to choose exactly how to respond next. One Particle responds by illumination up an LED, eco-friendly for a win as well as red for a loss. one more Particle board screens the results on an LCD screen. however this is where things get tricky. one of the a lot more confusing elements of their style is one of the Particle boards then signals back to IFTTT, telling it to tally the number of wins as well as losses. This seems a bit roundabout considering that the system started with IFTTT in the very first place. Regardless, they seemed to be delighted with the result as well as I’m sure they discovered something in the process.

This job may not meet any type of practical requirement provided that Alexa understands whatever about all our lives already as well as you might just ask her exactly how your preferred team is doing whenever you want to. however hey, we’re all about discovering by doing right here at Hackaday as well as we’re all guilty of building useless jobs right here as well as there just since we can. In any type of case, their job might serve as a great introduction to integrating your Particle with IFTTT or Alexa considering that there appears to be rather a bit of most likely unnecessary handshaking going on here.

keeping source code to programs closed is something that is normally frowned upon here for plenty of reasons. closed source code is less safe and less customizable, but regrettably we won’t be able to convince everyone of the merits of open source code any time soon. On the other hand, it is possible to decompile some of those programs whose source remains behind locked doors in an attempt to better understand that code, and one of the a lot more excellent examples of that of late is this project which has fully decompiled The Ocarina of Time.

To get started with the code for this project, one simply needs to clone the Git repository and then use a certain set of software tools (depending on the user’s operating system) to compile the ROM from the source code. From there, though, the world is your rupee-filled jar. like we’ve seen from other decompiled games, any number of enhancements to the original game can be made including boosting the frame rate, improving the graphics, or otherwise adding flourishes that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

The creators of this project do point out that this is still a work-in-progress as only one of the 18 versions have been completed, but the fact that the source code they have been able to decompile builds a fully-working game when recompiled speaks with how far along it’s come. We’ve seen similar processes used for other games before that also help to illustrate how much improvement is possible when re-writing old games from their source code.

Thanks to [Lazarus] for the tip!

Bluster around the introduction of self-driving cars has become a constant in the automotive world in recent years. much is promised by all comers, but real-world results – and customer-ready technologies – remain scarce on the street.

Today, we’ll dive in and take a look at the current state of play. What makes a self-driving car, how close are the main players, and what can we expect to come around the corner?

Levels of Autonomy

A graphic breaking down the various levels of driving automation, as defined by the SAE. Credit: SAE
The phrase “self-driving car” may seem straightforward, but it can imply numerous different things to different people. technological limitations also play a part, and so the society of Automotive Engineers stepped up to create classifications that make clear what any given autonomous or semi-autonomous car is capable of.

Below is a full breakdown, but if you’re in a hurry, think of it like this. level 0 cars have no automation, while basic things like adaptive cruise come under level 1. level 2 self-driving systems can deal with steering and throttle commands for you, but you’re expected to remain vigilant whatsoever times for hazards. level 3 systems take things up a notch, letting you take your eyes off the road while the car drives itself in the designated areas and conditions. level 4 systems introduce the ability for the car to deal with getting itself to safety in the event of an issue. level 2, 3 and 4 systems are all conditional, only working in certain areas or under certain traffic or weather conditions.  Meanwhile, level 5 cars remove limitations entirely, and can essentially drive themselves anywhere a human could.

Where We’re At

As it stands, the majority of new cars on the market are available with some form of level 1 automation, typically cruise control or possibly some basic lanekeeping assist. Typically, however, talk of self driving covers the proliferation of level 2 systems now in the marketplace. Tesla, GM, and Ford are some of the big players in this space already shipping product to market. Meanwhile, Honda and Mercedes have pushed ahead with level 3 systems on the market and just around the corner respectively. Meanwhile, Waymo is aiming even higher.

Tesla 

Keeping hands on the wheel is required when using Tesla’s Autopilot system, but numerous have found workarounds to cheat this.
Tesla’s Autopilot and “Full Self Driving” systems have been roundly criticized for the manner in which they have been marketed. The systems fall strictly under the level 2 category, as the chauffeur is expected to maintain a continuous look out for hazards and be prepared to take over at any moment.

Sadly, not everyone takes this seriously, and there have been fatal crashes in Teslas running Autopilot where nobody was in the driver’s seat. water bottles and other devices are often used to trick the system into thinking someone is still holding the wheel. as of April 2021, at least 20 deaths have occurred in Tesla’s driving under Autopilot, with the system known for driving directly into obstacles at speed.

Tesla has also made the controversial decision to start phasing out radar on its vehicles. The company plans to use cameras as the sole sensor for its self-driving systems, with one argument being that humans have made finish with only our eyes thus far.

Tesla has pushed forward with the technology, though, releasing its “Full Self Driving” beta to limited public testing last year. The system can now deal with driving on highways and on surface streets. It also has the ability to work with the navigation system, guiding the car from highway on-ramp to off-ramp and dealing with interchanges and taking required exits along the way.

Regardless of the updates, Tesla’s system is level 2 and still requires constant vigilance from the driver, and hands on the wheel. calls have been made to rebrand or restrict the system, with plenty of footage available online of the system failing to recognise apparent obstacles in its path (language warning).

GM

GM’s system lets you take your hands of the wheel, but requires you to keep your eyes on the road. Credit: Cadillac
GM has been selling cars equipped with its level 2 very cruise self-driving system for some time, lauded as safer than Tesla’s offerings by Consumer Reports. The system directly monitors the chauffeur with a video camera to assure attentiveness, and the most recent versions coming in 2022 allow for fully-automated lane changes and even support for towing.  The system allows the chauffeur to go hands-free, but attention should still be paid to the road else the system will be disabled and hand control back to the driver.

Super cruise can be used on over 200,000 miles of divided highways across the USA. However, unlike Tesla’s offering, GM’s cars won’t be driving themselves on city streets until the release of Ultra cruise in a few years time. The objective is tocover 2 million miles of us and Canadian roads at launch, with the Ultra cruise system depending on lidar and radar sensors as well as cameras to achieve safe driving in urban environments.

Ford

Ford’s upcoming BlueCruise system has only just hit the market, with a similar level of functionality to GM’s early very cruise system. The system lags behind Ford’s main American rival, as BlueCruise is only available for use on 130,000 miles of us highways. It also lacks the much more advanced features such as automatic lane changes that GM has included in later revisions of its software.

BlueCruise also lacks user interface features like the steering wheel light bar of GM’s system, which improves clarity as to the system’s current state of operation. Fundamentally though, it’s a first step from the blue Oval with much more sure to come in following updates. As it stands, it’s a basic system that combines lane keeping and adaptive cruise control but doesn’t yet deliver much much more than that.

Mercedes and Honda

The Drive Pilot system from Mercedes will allow chauffeurs to take their eyes off the road. It’s one of the first true level 3 systems available. Credit: Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes and Honda are the first two companies to deliver level 3 systems to market. These allow the chauffeur to kick back while activated, though outside of geofenced areas or in anomalous situations, they can be asked to take over in a timely fashion.

Honda’s system was first to launch, and has been available on the Honda legend because earlier this year. The company’s SENSING Elite technology enables the traffic Jam Pilot feature, which takes over driving tasks in heavy traffic on an expressway. Under these limited conditions, the chauffeur can view videos on the navigation screen or undertake other tasks without having to pay attention to the road ahead.

Mercedes will deliver its Drive Pilot system next year, initially enabled for 13,191 kilometers of German motorways. The system will similarly work during high-density traffic, up to a legally-permitted maximum of 60 km/h. The chauffeur can then delight in “secondary activities” such as browsing the Internet or viewing a movie.

Both systems rely on a combination of sensors, with Mercedes particularly noting the use of lidar, radar and cameras in their system. In both cases, chauffeurs should remain ready to take over if the system requests, but they are not required to maintain the constant vigilance required with level 2 systems. This feat is particularly achieved by limiting the systems to operation in the more-predictable environment of a congested motorway.

Waymo

As a technology company rather than an automaker, Waymo has had little incentive to rush a product to market. The company has in fact abandoned development of level 2 and level 3 systems due to the commonly-cited issues with vigilance tasks. even in the case of the company’s level 3 efforts, it had issues with staff falling asleep during testing, due mostly to the fact they had little to finish with the car driving itself.  Where Tesla has forged ahead with such systems, throwing caution to the wind and attracting an NHTSA investigation. CEO John Krafcik noted that Waymo chose such a system would draw too much liability.

Instead, the company is forging ahead with a system that will reach level 4 or better, aiming to eliminate the contentious issue of chauffeur handoffs. as of 2017, the company ran a system in its modified Chrysler Pacifica fleet that had a very easy interface. A button could be pressed to start travelling, and another would instruct the car to pull over safely.

The company has because started offering a driverless robotaxi service to a limited clientele as it tests its driverless vehicles. The company’s cars regularly take trips with nobody behind the wheel, though humans monitor the trips from a remote command center to help out in the case the cars get confused or face issues. The cars operate in particular geofenced areas during the development period, with the technology still a long way from ready for roll-out in all road situations.

Summary

The Gartner hype cycle. Credit: JeremyKemp, CC-BY-SA-3.0
As it stands, self-driving technology will be sitting around the Trough of Disillusionment for many. despite what we were all promised, self-driving systems remain heavily limited at this stage.

However, the tech is slowly climbing towards the point where it can be genuinely useful. efforts like those from Mercedes and Honda already relieve the chauffeur of the painful vigilance task and let them take their mind off driving, the primary goal of the technology from the outset. other systems do little much more than try and keep a car between lane lines while requiring the human to continually scan for hazards.

It will be sometime before the technology reaches maturity and we’re letting our driverless cars whisk us away without a second thought. Meanwhile, thousands of engineers are working hard every day to make that a reality.

3D prints aren’t normally understood for their warm resistance. However, [Integza] noted that utilizing the best techniques, it was possible to 3D print parts that might deal with heavy steam warm without failing. Thus, the natural progression from there was to develop a piston-type heavy steam engine.

The moving valve alternately feeds heavy steam to every side of the piston.
Resin prints are essential here, as the melting point of such parts is much higher than that of those turned out by common FDM printers. try this exact same develop utilizing PLA for the hot parts, as well as you’ll rapidly end up with a stack of molten goo.

To make such an engine work, valves are needed to enable heavy steam to flow into alternating sides of the piston to let it reciprocate continuously. A easy slide valve is used, enabling heavy steam to flow to one side of the piston as well as the other alternately, as driven by an arm coming off the flywheel connected to the engine’s output shaft.

Tested on compressed air as well as steam, the engine ran continuously, chugging away enthusiastically. However, heavy steam performance was compromised by the low pressure output of just 1.5 bar from [Integza]’s pressure cooker. Similarly, the cooker’s heavy steam capability was low, so the engine ran for just 15 seconds.

However, it suggests that with a much better supply of steam, the printed steamer might certainly run for some time. If you’re not into the wetter engines out there, though, think about extruding a Stirling engine instead. video after the break.

having any kind of shop is pretty great, no matter how large it may be or where it’s located. If the shop is in an outbuilding, you get to make more noise. On the other hand, it will probably get pretty darn hot in the summer without some kind of cooling system, especially if you don’t have a window for a breeze (or a window A/C unit).

[Curtis in Seattle] built an amazing thermal battery-based cooling system for his shop. The battery part consists of five 55-gallon drums full of tap water that are connected in series and buried a foot underground, about two feet out from the wall. There are two radiators filled with water and strapped to 20″ box fans  — one inside the shop, which sends heat from the shop into the water, and another outside that transfers heat out of the water and into the amazing night air. most summer days, the 800-square-foot shop stays at a amazing 71°F (21.7°C).

We love that the controls are housed in an old film projector. inside there’s an Arduino Uno running the show and taking input from four DS18B20 one-wire temperature sensors for measuring indoor, outdoor, battery, and ground temperatures. There are four modes accessible through the LCD menu — idle, amazing the shop, recharge mode, and a freeze mode in case the outside temperature plummets. Why didn’t [Curtis in Seattle] use anti-freeze? It’s too expensive, plus it doesn’t usually get that cold. (Although we hear that Seattle got several inches of snow for Christmas.) check it out after the break.

If you can’t just go burying a bunch of 55-gallon drums in the ground where you live, consider building a swamp cooler out of LEGO.

Thanks for the tip, [Zane Atkins]!

Photoluminescent stars on your bedroom wall or ceiling are quite cool, though the stationary shapes can ended up being boring. [Adi] felt this way, too. While doodling with a bright white light on some glow in the dark vinyl, it occurred to him that this might produce an fascinating display. He set about making GLO, the midnight message board as well as RSS display.

[Adi]’s light writer utilizes 12 UV LEDs on a linear axis powered by a stepper motor to compose RSS headlines, Twitter trends, or custom-made text on his wall. He discovers the sluggish fade of the text extremely soothing to autumn asleep by, as well as it’s simple to see why. The LED range imprints a section of a character including a 6×5 bit pattern. The 12 LEDs are split into two groups, so it can compose two lines at 45-50 characters each. [Adi] developed his own pixel font style for this project, as well as advises that only upper situation letter develops be used.

[Adi]’s review is rather admirable as well as comprehensive. In the circuit develop section, he advises that the LEDs should be extremely close to the vinyl for optimal results, however that they ought to protrude farther than the shift registers so the chips don’t rub the vinyl. Of program you might choose a lot more intense light sources, like laser. See it in action after the break.

If you discover yourself in requirement of chain link fencing, you’d most likely just head down to the hardware store. However, [The Q] has shown us that you can make your own at house with a easy machine.

The develop starts with a length of pipe, into which spiral slots are cut with an angle grinder. This pipe is the developing tool which shapes the cable into the familiar chain-link design. The pipe is then welded onto a backing plate, as well as fitted with a removable handcrank that turns a flat bar. Feed cable into the spiral groove, turn the crank, as well as out comes cable in the shape required.

From there, developed lengths of cable can be linked up into a fence of any type of preferred size. Of course, fastening each end of the fence is left as an exercise for the reader, as well as the ends are sharp as well as unfinished. However, if you don’t like the chain link fencing on sale at your regional hardware store, or you want to weave your own in some elegant type of wire, this device might be just the thing you need.

We’ve seen similar styles before too, however on much more of a doll-house scale. video after the break.

We keep trying to discover more about quantum computers. however the reality is, the method we program quantum computers — or their simulators — today will most likely not have much in typical with exactly how we program them in the future. believe about it. Programming your PC is nothing like programming the ENIAC. So we expect we’ll see more as well as more abstractions over the “bare metal” quantum computer. the latest of these is Twist, from MIT.

According to the paper (and the video, below), twist expresses entangled data as well as processes in a method that traditional programmers can understand. The key idea is understood as “purity” of expressions which assists the compiler determine if data is really entangled with one more piece of data or if any type of prospective entanglement is extraneous. A pure expression only depends upon qubits it owns, while a mixed expression may utilize qubits had by other expressions.

Here’s an example of a teleportation program in Twist:

This may seem strange, however discarding a qubit has the exact same impact as measuring it, so discarding an intermediate result can impact an entangled result that doesn’t promptly seem related. This is similar to how, in traditional programming, you may free memory utilized by two different pointers. Discarding memory containing, say, an worker record while holding one more pointer to the exact same record will cause issues if you reuse that memory later. However, with Twist, you can promise the compiler that there are no entanglements between pure expressions.

There is plenty more, of course, so checked out the paper. If you requirement a refresher on fundamental quantum computing principles, inspect out our series or watch a video.