Ep 296: Supercon Wrapup with Tom and Al, The 3DP Brick Layering Controversy, and How To Weld in Space
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we're through all the group the most. Well.

hello, welcome to the hacked day podcast i'm earlier.

Williams.

this is epsom two ninety six super co n rap up with thin o the three d printing brick layer in controversy and how to well in space wo full house tonight. This is the post super cn wrap up a day podcast. So it's the very end of the show we will be talking about super gun before that was quickly do some new.

The strangest thing that I read in the mainstream, impress, picked this up on BBC science. Britain's all the satellite on the move of space curiosity title should have been a space oddy. I think that taught he was playing with IT.

All we have the ability to change IT.

We could. So this is really weird. It's an ancient title.

It's skynet one. A britain good. yeah. right? Sky on the move.

britain's first communications satellite.

and it's from the first era of the first satellite, is from one thousand hundred and sixty nine. And IT isn't where IT was supposed to be when people went looking for IT. And the weird thing about this story is that IT looks like IT hasn't been where it's supposed to be for a long time.

And IT was made some position correction in the seventies, probably nobody knows for sure, and is totally somewhere else now. But they picked IT and they think they're pretty sure it's sky at one a. So what's weird about this is that the u and the U.

K. Both had control of the satellite, interminable tly. And nobody has records of who moved IT out of whatever orbit was in before, but somebody did because it's somewhere else.

How many more movie references can you sneak into this?

You know, the first thing that comes in mind is, you know then struggle to get documentation from voyager, right? Yeah, law. The stuff from this era is is documented, but on some kind of print out that locked in the the basement of a closed bathroom, i'm sure there if I was intentionally move, i'm sure someone did make note of IT. But finding that document is the hard part. Certainly not going to be listen on the a pedia or something.

Well, just to put on my ten foil head, I mean, is there any chance that i'm sure there isn't a lot of security around the update in those days? They did somebody decide to test their intelligence data and move IT for them?

Yeah, no, nobody knows is the short answer. And IT may matter actually, right? Blue gym links to a great right up about this IT looks like IT comes from the nosis network.

No idea what this is, but they have dug up the records of the position of this thing. And there is a huge gap from like nineteen and ninety nine, probably nineteen and eighty two. And then there's another gap from one thousand nine hundred eighty nine to one hundred ninety three or something. Anyway, there are a bunch of years where this is just no telemetry on this thing. During one of those periods, IT looks like I got moved so nobody knows what's .

up as it's also possible, you know being a dead satellite that they can't really check the the health on. It's not outside the robot possibility that you something leaked. And he worked as A A thruster that is not completely unheard of that a jet of pressurize for pilot, you know broke through a lion and and pushed IT that's up on another satellite that was kind .

of what I was going to mengindra that or you know something smacked and it's a beyond all float off. But I don't know that seems odd that that would not just knock IT out of a orbit or what what made IT go back. I can do a stable orbit and I assume it's in some stable, predictable orbit, but I guess that is possible, but it's not IT seems less likely, right? If you said, oh, it's suddenly created into the sun or something, you go, oh, you know, burned up in the atmosphere okay.

may may be right. But yeah this, uh, the osa network one is really need right up, but talks about a couple like quasi stable, but Oscar ory gravitational well orbits that are protected by both the fact the earth isn't quite a perfect sphere and that the sun in the moon, of course, are a bitter around.

And so that means there are a couple places where you can get into a more or less stable orbit where IT just kind of goes wbi back and forth a little bit, but kind of around the center. And that's that's another neat part of this. And that seems to be in one of those.

I know maybe IT was on purpose park there. Oh, there, go steward eves. As the guy with nosis network, he speculates this, my actually matter, who moved the satellite last, because is a giant piece of dead satellite out there.

And if something else runs into IT, who's responsible? The answer would be the U. K. But if there are not the people who moved at last, who knows, and start guesses that IT was the americans who moved at last. Again, nobody has any records.

If we open the hacket tabloid site, we could have aliens move satellite, right? There would be the headline.

Like half the news coverage I read about this, nobody mentioned that IT was moved sometime like years ago. But then why does anyone know where this thing is until recently? And why is that a surprise? Who's watching this guy?

This is a joy to sound. What's that sound?

But first, let's suffer a little. How about some? What's let's sound. That time you'll get this one for sure.

Absolutely hundred percent no pressure.

If you don't get this one, I will eat my microphone for those of you don't know, this is a weekly contest where we play a sound, ask you to guess what that is. And among the people who guess correctly, roll the dice and the lucky winner, i'll get a hack day podcast.

还有 原 螺丝。

Well, I will try. I think I know what IT is not be a tough chAllenge, anybody who wasn't there, but I believe this is the whereabout electric typewriter that was banging out hack articles.

Super han, this is my gan hunters. S A L. Daily wheel type rider, exactly.

congratulations. I knew you get that. I knew you get IT. Well, I did clue them in that IT was that I was super on relevant. And I think .

I even said .

IT was an S. O, K. We had what? Twenty nine answers, of which seventeen were correct. So good job, good job you all. I'd level these zero to sixteen and I realized afterwards that I could roll twenty side to die. I'm going to row a die.

I'm a subtract one to take out the zero offset and will see what we get typical ah the number is seven so that six congratulating john typewriter S A O from the one hour twenty nine minute fifty five second mark in the super con twenty twenty four badge hacking close s Price ceremony. Shortly after, I got on the delayed plane back home and had to stop watching. Sigh, next time I will book my flight home on monday. Thank you. So yeah.

a good advice.

A very correct answer in all ways. Everybody should book their flight back on monday.

Yeah, right. I think it's tract, but we do keep a role until the we hours on on sunday. I would not feel bad for anybody. I would have you if you have get back early monday, you have to. But if you can end anyway, swing IT definitely stay till monday morning.

Rock's kicks us out about two or two thirty the morning and then A A bunch of brave souls get up super early and go off to apex.

For some 你 plus .

ground ging or often do other things。 So there's there's tons of cool stuff to do afterwards. And you know if you want to know where you're gna run into those people, the other is a supermarket.

Anyway, anyway, congratulations john. I touch with you and get a haga t shirt out to you. Everyone else who is expecting a haga t shirt and has had delays.

A number of things have happened. We changed office managers and supply frame and then they out of t shirts of some given sizes. And we're just to switch over to an on demand per person t shirt printing solution because that's easier on everybody. So if we ou A T shirt little becoming short.

if you mentioned that in the last episode, I shame, shamefully, did not listen, is very cool. Y, in all the hacking day post t shirts at super, yeah, right. Was the first time, at least I noticed them.

I think there were like three, four people. They had shirts. And I asked, wonderful. But what's energy? What's IT?

Yeah, right. And everyone could remember their .

sound and an ultra, the addition. sure. You and you are in anywhere. Yeah.

I think I was just lovely. I even remember red, some of the good. And hi, well, without further, do let's head on off to the hacks.

I wanted to start off this week with a video from geek d to our brick layers, the promise of stronger three d prints and why we cannot have nice things. This is a discussion and I don't know, and we'll have to have that discussion here about a particular method to make three d printed stronger. And Normally they're printed in kind of layer lines, just straights over each other.

So all the beats excluded on a single layer are kind of in a plane, which means that there is a nice leaving line between the two plans. And if you three printed, you know that the z direction is the weak direction, even though the noodles are squashed down when they get printed. If you kind of think of them the circles, you got two circles touching each other.

And if they were really not squeezed at all, I would just speak like touching each other at the tiny st. Little tangent point. And the only surface you get there is between the noodle just below and just above.

And the of that surface is defined by the squish of the print. So that's a super important parameter. If you want to talk about the layer adhesion stuff of cnc kitchen, pointed this out. A Better way to do this is to print them offset. So IT actually looks like kind of hacks agony, close packing.

If you cut IT in cross section and look at IT, it's that like one circles, but others halfway down, the next one's halfway up, the next ones halfway down, which is kind of why they call IT brick layers. Because if you cut the print vertically and then you tip IT sideways, IT kind of looks like the way you overlap bricks on each other. And because there's more contact, because one beat is in contact, not just with the one below IT, but the one off the side as well.

That just makes the adhesion strong. And it's pretty simple. You get a little bit denser print that way, like the walls use up a little bit more plastic, but you get a lot more strength.

Thought of IT not was kind of the point. Here then comes the controversy. And that's what geek tour brings up in his video, which is a company called the ad man intermediate holdings. And if that doesn't sound like a pat company, I don't know what does patent this idea in twenty twenty gr tourist claim? And I think he's probably totally right.

This is a completely bogus pattern, and he brings up an original pattern from strategy sis back in one thousand nine ninety five, where, among other things, they're talking about how to get stronger walls and suggest doing exactly this. Not really clear what ad men intermediate holdings pattern brings to the game. I guess they do suggest printing a short layer, you know, kind of a half layer, a half height layer, to make the bricks work.

So you start off with a half layer and then a full layer, and then a half layer. So the next layer can be full, full, full. But off that I don't know.

I mean, maybe there's some merit there. I'm not a lawyer, but this idea is certainly not hundred percent noble. And I think that's the point of this video. I don't know why we can't have nice things. I would guess, although I could also be totally wrong, that an open source implementation of this routine that used not for profit, if the pattern even has teeth at all, because patents have a big cut out for a research and R N D.

And improvement on the method that's described in the like, that's the whole point of pants, is to help advance science, right? And so you say, here's my method so that the next guy can be like, oh, that's a cool method I want to improve on IT. I'm not a one person this bad, even elephant, but it's definitely definitely looks also .

to be derivative again, layers. We actually do have a pat lawyer on speech. But yeah, this is how you lay brakes. But I mean, it's how you like do flying and so offset pieces so the joints don't all line up. I mean, this is something they have been doing for hundreds years in each construction. So I don't know how that drives was like prior are and kind thing too IT is being used in a now IT wasn't a traditionally used in but like the idea of staggering joints said they all all line up, you know.

is have been done before.

Kind goes back to the antiquity. I like I think they did that appears right. Like how how do you say that you came up with that, right? So IT is a little surprising that it's taken this long to see IT show up. You know the the discussion around three printing, but I think we've talked about this before where we've sort to hit a plata in a lot of ways.

And I think now, 哦， people overturn the mosier rocks, right? Like all the easy gains have been made for like speed and directional accra y and strengths and stuff announce to start, you really look into the do we know parts of the internet and see if we could find any other gains be made. Reason this isn't come up before we were just happy to get layers working at all.

Little one staggers them but is certainly make sense. And and I think if if I could be brought to slices, this is something you would probably do on every print sometimes this just to change orientation like you're printing something and right. And I think that's kind of like the common wisdom is okay.

If you need something that's going to have this lateral force, they don't print IT vertically because it's got a snapp off right where IT gets skinning and it's super obvious. So if you can know turn inside and or even for forty be coming from. But if you could do this, and I would help in this kind of for each cases, I am sure I think there there's uh, useful assume we can pull that off and out and suit. But you are so much of the best top three printing world has relied on patterns going on going at a date. And I mean, that reason that like to know maker bot and everything got their start is because these some of these patterns from my the eighties about ad of manufacturing, you know time and then kind of came up quickly and try to implement IT in the rest story.

right? So for the background on that, we'd all been working on that. And the regret stuff predates the end of that patent.

And so people were working on these machines. And you know, we had we had a repap Darwin running at our hacker space before the pattern was up. And then the pattern goes up and a company like micro bott can start to sell their machine.

And that's what really made the difference with the pattern, is that you could then start to sell machines based on this technology. Just for the record, those were all studies patterns too, like they did all of the innovation in plastic FTM3 printing and you know， really, really need stuff. So .

they .

I get IT. Yeah exactly. And in the machines were orders of magnitude expensive for the hacker scene to use them. And so that's the do that the rep community gets because they took this in rama that made IT for everyone.

But it's no surprise to see that distracted was like, hey, you could do stagged layers if if not them, then who I can think of a few different reasons why you wouldn't want to do this one if your walls aren't that thick anyway. But if you're doing two layer walls, I guess that doesn't even particularly matter that you offer them. But if you're doing three, you know, it's like your backing three bricks, right?

The offset doesn't matter super, super much if you need something that's really strong and you're doing more, more layers thick in the wall than that. I'm sure it's helpful. The other is that it's a lot more z up and down.

You have to think about you know whether you're gna print high, low, high, low every time you do that, that's driving the Z X is up and down. And so could be a lot more where on the motors IT certainly is the direction that most back lashes the trap ode nuts on a lot of simple 3d printers just started meant to be backlash free in both directions。 So, you know, maybe there is some design need to worry about there, but again, it's a simple software week and should easily be doable.

Uh, my guesses if you do IT in open, free, obvious software, that probably counts as R N D. And you know, the company can see you in court and and I think they would be reluctant to do that because they're probably actually afraid of prior art and getting exposed in court. So my guess is they won't take you to board on that. On the other hand, for you, since I wouldn't hold your breath to see this improve a slice because there are company, they y've got money to lose and would probably be worth trying to see them.

Hi all right. First one I wanted to talk about is from the mysterious node and the individual that makes some pretty striking youtube videos that can noone for their black and light line art and occasionally node pops up and do something that's not a youtube video that's always, uh, exciting. And this is, I think, the second look, right.

I think that notice done that we are the ones, but this one is one thousand useful things to make, right. Talk about something that that up ality and IT is a an E E book that you can downside for free right now IT has spoiler, a thousand useful things to make IT IT. And they're all done that very distinct line art, although I think no got some heat from, like the last book where IT was White line are on black.

People were, say, making, I want to print this out 不对， after, you know, use all my import. The now inverted, it's its black line on a White background, which I suppose for some folks, no one here and have the approves of White backgrounds but suppose if you must, but it's a really cool compendium of addressing stuff. And when I was kind of surprised by when I downloaded is I think, okay, it's a ebook full of useful things to make, right, like w instructions.

But no, IT is fully embraces modern technology. And IT is an e book in the literal sense that when you click on one of these images, one of these diagrams and actually takes you to the project page for that thing, like it's some embedded link in the P, D F. I guess I actually wouldn't be point and print in the salt because you print IT out, you can tap, you can tap the print picture as long visual dbase of links to projects, which is a little bit like a website that we write in in P, D F for.

So the perhaps that's a way to take of IT. If you ever want A A P, D F version of that day with less words and more pictures. This might be for you.

But yeah, this is really cool database of stuff. And it's organized. Uh, you know, he breaks IT down the different categories and it's cool. You can see the pictures and a feel for of them just browsing around in there, I thought, was also interesting. That is not just A D I Y thing I can make IT yourself, right? So I suppose it's not unreasonable think that it's it's limited to like D I Y projects.

But some have actually are like open hardware stuff from companies like the you know, the proof mark three is in there and the proof mini because those actually have not to get down a rabid hole, but like the modern precision inter that have come out recently, uh, they actually have all the files available so you can make your own mini and mark three. So those are countries potential make IT yourself because you know the information out there. So it's it's interesting mix of literal D I Y.

This is just some person on their work pension. Here's that you can recreate IT and also open hardware stuff. And that's kind of cool to see because you know was a lot that is is kind of a dream, right, of open hardware to have that out there and and be able to recreate IT. So putting IT on even footing with regular D I D I Y projects is, is a nice approach.

I think like you said, like some of the things are things you can make and some of the things are things that you want to have to make, the things that you want to make and right, you said there's like probe holders and three d principle protractor and you know you name IT squares and you know a bunch of a drill press, right? Like a whole bunch of things you can make yourself for. You know it's kind of inspiration to do some things.

And I think that's what's cool about IT too. You know it's not like plans. Nothing is detailed. It's just like, hey, here's a whole bunch of cool things.

Have a look at the mall and in that sense, it's like the hacker slash maker coffee table book, right? Like like nothings in depth enough. You're not going to sit there and read all day, but you're going broke through this.

You're gna be like, oh, hey, that's cool. Oh, hey, that's cool. Oh, hey, that's cool. I think that's kind of fun too.

Yes, it's absolutely more about inspiration than directly instruction. But hey, I mean, we can get behind that, right? This kind of the name of the game is giving people a platform where you don't say, you just show your friends who may may not be interested in the latest thing you've made your garage. You can show a captive audience, people who are definitely very interested in in the stuff you make.

No, doesn't mention that I saw anyway of how this was put together, whether this was like just network, you know, on their part or is there submission process or or something but that might be interested to for like future editions, you can you get can you get your project going to be a thousand and once by sending IT? right? So i'd like to keep in on on.

Well, here's someone else you can make who knew this is a video from bit loni building A D I Y nip code disk display. He starts the video off by saying, this could be a weekend project. I don't know.

I've seen him developing this and IT took him more than the weekend. But of course, it's a lot easier to rebuild something that that is to build IT for the first time. Those of you who don't know a ipco desk is an early form.

IT was actually one of the earliest ideas about how to make moving pictures. It's kind of a proto T, V. And away. And it's made by taking a big spinning disk and cutting a spiral of holes in IT.

The spiral of holes work out as they spin around the disk, kind of the same way that airlines do on a regular t. So if you can imagine one whole passing by making a little bit of an arc and then the next whole spirals in. So it's a little bit lower and that makes an art.

And then the next host a little bit lower that that makes an art, and kind of all of these arts are kind of of masters in Normal T, V displays. The trick is then that you have to moderate the light source in time with the desk, so that IT goes bright dart, bright dark, bright dark. As that whole scans across the area that you're looking at.

And that's the way a nip codec makes a resty scanner out of nothing more than, you know, a motor and something with a bunch of holes drilled in IT. So luis projects pretty cool. He actually three prints the disk part and it's got a little registration hole also cut in IT and then the rest is just A L E D and then the micro controller to make IT blink.

Ah I guess he also has an opto interrupt the times that gap. So he knows when the disk has gone around a full rotation, he's also using a step promoter. So I think he can also in addition to the registration not he can also tell how many steps he's been.

I just makes writing the code to time the L D A lot easier if you know beforehand how far a step is gonna. He uses A U, V, L, D and a glove screen. I guess he kind of wants a little bit of persistence of vision here.

And he he's thinking about the fox first on on A T, V screen, how they have a little bit after glow because yeah, unless this this is been in hell of fast, the when the whole disk is gone through one rotation, it's like a full screens update. And so each one has to rest or pretty quickly. So a little persistence there goes along.

But then he also makes IT without the glow screen. And IT works actually maybe even a little bit Better, because I think his glow screen was glowing a little bit too long. This is a simple project and a really cool one, and that shows you how a nip code disk works. And most of its in code, right? It's blink and L D, except this blink L D really, really fast and in sink, but it's basically .

blink and L D L D with the existence of this as like an early display technology. But watching this video and seeing somebody actually put IT together certainly brings a nuclear ity to IT illuminating. They were not like, oh, okay, I get IT.

So like, you know the the dot works this way across the screen and if you time and right that you know that you will travelling instead of A A moving beam from A C R T is a mechanical thing. But IT is just so propose dern technology. But it's it's cool to see how IT worked and take that step back to an earlier, you know, imagine in an alternate reality where we we still had this kind of technology powering our displays of me. IT be a lot of fun.

So ink in the shower notes, go check out Jenny's article in which he talks about not projection, but image acquisition with a nip codec, which, of course, was the other side of this, if you want to make a movie projection thing, you have to take the signal in that makes the L, D, blame gum one side and then spit IT out on the other. And of course it's just, you brightly illuminate your scene.

You put a lens through the disk against your light sensor, and you just record the. Voltage coming off of IT is exactly the opposite of the representation method. And that would be kind of fun to do. Like you could take a really high speed photo. Dio put IT where the L, E, D would be in bit loon set up, and you could we make yourself a transmitter, and, you know, you can make your own nip co broadcasting station if you had two of them. And then nothing to stop you.

I think you give some ideas for next video.

What's funny is all you need to do is synchro ze these two wheel together, right, so that they are working together. I was funny about that is the, I were actually last week talking about broadcast T. V. And how IT was the case that, you know, the same scan line was going across every one screen in amErica at exactly the same time because IT was being broadcast from a central location. You are watch the same show as your neighbor, but you are actually watching the beam and exactly the same spot as your neighbor because that's the way that technology word.

I guess the article leading into that was old school video tubes, which this also kind of an electron beam scanning version of the way A C R T works, just reading out the scan current where with A C R T you just be projecting IT. So I mean, it's exactly the same thing and away, and that's what blew my find about doing this nip al research at the same time as watching bit loonies video is that in this set up, two, like you have a spinning disk somewhere and then lights passing through a hitting a photo detector, that voltage is being transmitted across wireless or wireless or whatever, I don't care. And then that exactly voltage is being fed into the light on the other end and then projected out through the spinning wheel. And as long as the two spinning wheels sink boom, you're done, you've got a weird low via video transmission system.

And i'm pretty sure, like back in the day, that was considered by the advantages too, is that there was a lot of similarity between the transmission and reception side. So IT was seen as, like, you know, yeah compared tly simplistic because the way you recorded the show was almost exactly where you watched IT on the other end. So there was a lot of commonality and in the components and stuff.

And imagine this for an old timi radio show and not a podcast, I would be talking into a weekly diagram that would be making an electronic signal that would go straight to you, that would wiggle diagram m, that would make sound waves in your room. I mean, this the same thing, mom, broadcast audio. It's the same thing is broadcast video.

It's this weird, super old idea. And somehow, like I, I didn't have any of these brain flashes until until reading all these articles and talking about IT here on the pod. Guests, so everybody make this new code, disk cameras and receivers. And h, show me what you get.

It's twenty twenty five with the earlier the nipa disk, who i'd be fun. We're .

bringing IT back.

Bring in IT back. Well, from beaming television to beaming ing lasers, whatever my next one is. Nas announced new trials for in space laser welding.

Building stuff in space is hard and is in fact so exceptionally hard that, aside from linking massive actions of the space station together, almost nothing has actually ever been built in space. Everything is up for for canada debate, you know, you can take anything for granted, you know. So there was early.

All in all kinds of research will glues work the same will, you know, metal will spontaneously world itself together. Sometimes because of the environment is very hard to get stuff piece together the way you want. So we have done exceptional little bit in orbit and have relied on this big modular concept.

But if you are to really conquer space and, you know, have any kind of long term presence on the moon or mars, whatever we're gonna, we going to need to build to put stuff together. That isn't just the equivalent of giant legos, right? So there has been previous research in welding and working with metal in space, but precious little, the soviet did IT the first time in and sixty nine.

Or they just know, hey here, stupid, the medal can we? You know, well, together with a, with a beam, you know, that was like a inside a little experiment capture. In eighty four they actually went outside the the capture and well did piace m altogether, which is provide the closest thing to production welding ever actually seen in space.

As for nasas part, there was a experiment aboard skylab in seventy three where they had controlled thing, a couple of pieces of metal inside of a box, and they would get wild. And the at the time debate, you know, how would the the poll multon metal even behave when I just spray everywhere and not make a joint, you know? So these are very fundamental questions that needed to be answered by early experiments. You know, on the whole, they all they all want pretty well.

So now that were you potentially looking at a post iss space program and maybe going to the moon and and all this kind of stuff that is, is on the on the timetable for the next couple decades that is getting interested this again and has announced a research collaboration where they want to start can't taking this series, you know, what kind of welding can we do? Can we take two pieces of metal and do an automated, you know, laser world to create something strong enough, rely on? Is that good thing you can contest on earth, like you have to do IT in, at the very least, low gravity? You know, they talk about, they did some of the early tests in a little flights where you can do the and you know airplane where you do these log, uh, moments for your thirty seconds at a time.

So they did early test there. And the the laser welding equipment seemed to behave itself ves and looking, you know, do with a very real thing and go into space and examining how IT works, compared other technology is, to me, is is a of a cool sign. The time where you know what, like book, and this era of space flight, like the, you know, the tested in sixty nine like that, right?

When things started, start getting hot in in, in the space rate. So like there is this idea early on that yeah, we'll be well and step together and building things. This test that out really quick, which occurs, never occurred.

Instead we will with this like modular way of building stuff in orbit, but that we're going to come in full circle and going back to say, so, you know, hey, we're going to go into space and do a lot of stuff. We need to see a good world things. IT is another sign that this is a new era of what's possible and what can we do and and push the envelope. And it's as somebody who you know is a space third like myself and haven't watched A I won't say the stagnation necessarily of spaces flight, but the the monday kind of going through emotions that was happening, the shutter error, where is the ground? This is kind of one of those signs to me that, you know we're looking again to reach out and see what are the limits and what what can we actually do once we get off the ground and and .

start pushing farther in the space? Or even if you can well, in space, you can run a free where project and .

make profit.

No, that's too grim. My last act this week is a piece of slightly bad news. I guess if you use free card, for the last year and half two years, a company has been pushing a lot of the recent innovations that i've made IT, doubtless less Better, including leading up to the one point, oh, release of free cat, which is significantly Better, especially if you do assembly of multiple parts than previous versions.

And this is company is called on sale. The other thing they've actually been really involved in is the computer manufacturing tool s generation. And that's the part that most impact me because I actually use free c for calm facilities more than for its cat. I mean, I do the modeling and free cats, so it's easy to plug in, although sometimes I do IT in open skd and then plug IT in. But then the tool path and how to turn that into movements of a flat gantry order that all free cat, and that's actually some of the stuff that answers contributed to IT, too.

And basically what happened is a bunch of free cat enthusiast decided to make a company to try to make a fork of IT that would be commercial viable, and they're going to sell this and sell support for IT and feed everything back into the free CD community. I think that's what's awesome about answer is that they were supporting a free and open source for project free at and just like pushing everything they do back up, which is not to say that free at took IT all um free cds, still an independent project and on so would do some network and say, here's our work, do you want to use IT and free cat would say yes or no and so not everything that they had in their version made IT into free cat. But because of the love or hate that kind of weird, everything's disconnected.

Bunching of modules, plugins, workspace mode in which that works, all of the individual modules that on sel developed, we just you just download plug in. So I think we even covered one fairly recently, which was the physics simulator behind a cube at launcher IT was the low microgravity cuba simulation that was one of the ones all things because they were supporting the free space stuff. So yeah, so it's really sad to see him go.

I mean, some part of me says it's way too early. You know, they've only been around for two years. I don't know how long piece of software like that takes to gain traction, but two years seems like an trac dinar's short runway for them to like take off and become economically viable, especially given the kind of leaps and bounds free cat has been making lately.

Know the last year has just been tremendous for the usability of free cat. And so you know, one point of was released at six months ago, five months ago. And answer which is, is taking a lot from that is shutter just now.

That seems to me they have an extremely short runway. And that seems really sad because you they were trying to make money doing this, but they were also contributing back to the rest of us. And jack liu and anonymous mentioning the comments, the blender foundation and how don't if you remember how blender was back in the early two thousands, but man IT was rough.

And then they had this kind of turnaround moment where they redid all of the U. I. And IT. Became a lot more usable.

And that's anonymous st point is that quote, I hope the free cat hits its blender foundation point and starts to become very good very quickly and essentially become Better than the commercial tools. And I have to say me too, and on sel was definitely kind of trying to push that forward. I spill little beer for on sel.

They certainly added a lot of the goodness to the camping parts of free cat that I use every time I fired IT up to make parts. Thanks, thanks. And best of luck with whatever goes forward. It's notable that I think everybody who works there is gonna continue contributing to free.

There's just not gonna to do IT for their day job time. Given for this sort of thing to develop because you would look at other similar stuff, uh you know like code weavers verses wine, they have their prospective version of wine was a cross over that they have for increased compatible with different forever, get support with IT. I mean that I think as old as the wine project is itself right, like that's been around basically forever.

And it's helps immensely because it's like when google or or steam or these kind of move the needle with wine, they would usually go through cold leavers because they are not like to pay developers, right? So and then that would make his way back towards towards wine proper. So stuff like improved game support that we're seeing from like proton and the stuff the paid spin off of the open source project certainly enable that.

Can I actually just did my research now IT turns out on so was founded by brad, who is slip tonic, who is the guy who does the path library, who does the path work space? So he is the guy who runs the calm part of free cat. So it's no surprise that they contribute to that a lot.

Is that him? But it's also a team of other people. And I was wrong as a public benefit corporation, which means the employees are all stakeholders as well.

And so basically, what we're talking about here is a company of people trying to write the software and trying to get paid for IT. And you know, getting paid for writing open sour software that we all benefit from is like one of those super noble things. So I think anyone can complain about the business model is just a bomber that IT didn't work out and that always.

yeah how do how .

do you support open source software that takes resources and people working on IT without paying for IT, you know, without limiting access to a to force people to pay for IT? That's the close source of for a model. And its crappy, you know how how do you do that with free software and still get people paid, get food put on the table for people so that they have more time to program? That was an open question. I don't have .

the answer if you were .

waiting for the answer to that one.

Yeah, we were trying to figure that one out since the start. The last one I want to bring up is just kind of interesting little space, a slash engineering thing why I used cine for yc lud. You know when we think of hydro ics, you know you try to think of some kind of an oil in like a close loop pressurised system.

And that's cute if you know you're a dump truck or something and have no concerns about mass and that kind of thing. But if you try to get to space and every gram counts, stuff like hydraulic pumps and reservoir and even indeed a whole separate fluid can quickly become kind of a nonstarter, right? Or the very least is a place where serious optimization can be made.

So for the the SAT five, they can this idea that they would use the actual the R P1 propelled lent， which is uh effective care oxy, and it's like a high hybrid care sine they would use that as the hydro lic fluid, right? So okay, of the bed you don't have whole other fluid. They have to maintain the top off and plus.

So that's great. As you might imagine, the propelling going into the the rocket agent is already quite pressurised, right? So if you just tap off that you already have a pressurize source of this fluid and you don't necessarily need your own secondary pump for another win that's less faure the surface.

The the last part of of the traditional hydro system would be that, you know it's closed loop and you have like a reserve and and you're going to use IT over over again, rockets like fuel. They like you a lot and they want every possible drop you have. So capturing some amount of the propellant in the hydronic system is not really viable because you may need that.

So the idea of this, this was like they would take the high pressure cassine coming out the pump, use IT to actuate the threat of veteran system itself and then just basically just dump IT right back in so they could still be used. So you're not consume the fluid, right? IT still can be used to burn, and you're not capturing IT in a system where you couldn't have access to IT.

And IT worked quite well. Thank you very much. You made IT to the moon and you know, IT worked perfectly on on all the saturn flights. And this is not like a lost technology. IT is still used, but in pretty limited capacity, you know, that is used like aviation sometimes, and jet engines and that sort of thing.

You know, I mentioned they use on the f thirty five fighter jet IT also was at one point used on the falcon nine when they were working on the reusable order in the earlier days, they were using open loop uh propellant actuators for the the great fans on the on the top. You know, unless my memory is really fAiling me, I think they were even on that one just like dump in the used cassine overboard because they figured that was by the time you are Operating the the great fans, you are pretty much almost on the ground anyway. So they didn't, you know rather plan to back down.

So you can just do the one way plum up to the great fans and just let the care see basically school over the side. They want want to close the system in the end for you know reubin in mainland purposes. And and I think now on starship to even electrics of full circle, a lot of weird engineering that goes into getting a rocket off the ground, and all of that is very hard.

This is just one of those, you know, we talk about stuff is developed for the space program and and find this way and other things and input is solved like kind of construct IT and get down to the core principles to optimize IT. For you would never do this right? Preferable anything else like if you going to make like like a dump truck or something that won't, this would would make any sense. But in this case, when the money is no object and you can basically are in your way out of any any kind of this came up been the solution that that worked for.

I imagine your break lines were full of gasoline. This was .

the IT also .

makes me think of my old vovo, which used to have seventy three vovo, which had horrible power steering, first generation power steering. And that thing burned its power steering fluid because IT just leaked .

for the ending. Does does. No, no. I just .

made a pile of smoke. Alright, my first quick act this week is season cycle of skies, making a unique type of wind gage for home assistant use. What I thought was really cool about this is the wind gage is basically a thin and IT pushes down on four different strain sensors, or arranged in the cardinal directions.

So when the wind comes blowing from the east, that pushes the thing over, told the west, and the west strain gage gets the most pressure on IT dead. Simple, sweet little idea for a hopefully reliable wind gage for your home weather station. Next up, our Williams is retroactive address, ts, a solsbury cameras.

This one was actually a long foreign ACE, but I IT in because you just need to see IT before the age of digital storage scopes. They used to just take pictures of the front of IT, and there is a whole, a little scope camera that goes on with this. If you haven't ever seen this good read, that post, that really fun NASA.

The constant monitoring and work that goes into James web space telescopes, optics, this is really cool. They just refocus some of the reflectors on the James web and they are aligned with six degrees of freedom actuators, and they also can control the curvy. And so every once in a while, and it's been a few years since they've done IT, they can just recognize ate the whole system to make sure that it's focusing as sharp as IT possibly can.

What's really amazing is that they haven't done that for like two years. That's pretty cool. So a testable to the kind of intense thermal stability.

They have managed a machine into this thing. And last up my fourth of three quick acts, Benjamin hunting. Welcome to sub trappist, the limestone mine turn climate controlled business complex.

This is a weird guy story, but I just thought I was so read because it's the story of a former limestone mine that kind of fifty years ago was purposed as an underground storage area. Because its super dry, its constant temperature force stores a bunch of trucks there. And like the U.

S. Post office, keeps commemorative stamps there. And but it's just like fifty million square feet of underground property in kansas city.

And so kansas city, I thought, ask kristina about IT. And she's like, what you mean? That super giant cave that's over on thirty of street? Yes, sub drop less.

Anyway, fun story. Go read up on IT. Turns out their abandoned limestone mines everywhere, waiting for you to purchase and set up an underground B, M X track in looking at you leval.

So my first quick hacks this week is hit man brings modern input vintage pcs. And this is A A really cool open source project that let you use current USB and also P S two devices with computers that far, far outside those standards. And the idea here is that even if you have no one is old retrod computers like like to poke around on, the preferable for them can often be hard to find and not in race, condition and expense all.

And honestly, if you're took around on a reo computer, it's more about run the software than what keyboard, your present button on, right. So this let you take that right or G P U, sb keyboard and hook IT up to whatever ancient machine you like to spend evenings on and is really nice open project. Uh, very well documented, very cool built in menu system that, uh, you can access through you through the keyboard itself.

Just a great project to keep if you have a reta machine in your life. Next up is a brief history of cyrix or how to get sued by intel a lot. I remember having these chips in some of the old computers I was missing around with from cyrix and they did like um you know method prosers and I kind of stuff and they disappeared and I said I hadn't given that much thought until this article came came out and I what happened to them? And the answer is, like intel, I just suit them into a briefing and bradly like like seventeen lawsuits.

They live IT against syria for you to the crime of making chips, right? I wanted to have control over all that countersuit and there is purchases and they got bought at other companies that like geode, which is the dresses they heard jo, I think they used to make little single board computers and that we covered in the early days hack day. And then the that you know it's all kind of purchases and patterns and it's, you know interesting time eline.

What happened to this to this company that was at one time i'm fairly well known and like to the three, six, forty six era and hours sort of lost to history and last up. I'm kind of on A A retro computer thing here. I didn't intend this but the up is teaching computers to read so and this is um yeah can make sense that this you have to have ve seen like the old programming magazines of like the seventies and eighties and and that that that was a thing that people would get a magazine about procuring their computers.

But yeah, in the pre internet days, B B S forum days and stuff programs, you you might go buy one of these magazines and type the program into your computer yourself to get the newest school game that all the, all the kids replant that kind of socks have, having to type in programs from the back of magazines. So there was this idea that they could do barcode, right? And you have a barcode code and you'd have this barcode reader, and you scan in these pages of of text, you would have a working program.

And for the time, you know, IT seems like this might be the future of like software distribution, right? They could print code out for cheap in magazines, and you scan IT, and everything would be great, obviously. Then things went a little bit differently in the real world once we can just downed stuff from the internet.

But in this kind of an interesting time, capture of just how things we're done back then. And this is a video from tech agent where they they look at one of these barcoo readers and they actually grab some of the error appropriate magazines and scan some some programs in cool little time capture of like an alternate, alternate history of what, what, what we are doing right now. I imagine you had a scared in the podcast that we had printed in a magazine. Is that downloading IT on the internet?

right. So in place of campus articles this week, we wanted to talk about our experiences of super cn and how IT went because as a special treat, we've got our and tom both in the hot seat tonight.

So A A tree is a tree for .

the listeners. We'll see how they .

feel about IT. See the kind emails we get the .

second Prices an hour with other time. First Prices a half hour with another time.

If you don't like the head podcast, you certainly won't like this installment of our camiss. Oh, I know you spend most of the time with the sodding chAllenge. What were your highlights? Well.

you know, and it's true we were talking about that. I stay rooted in that corner. You know, that's pretty basically all I can do for the most part.

But I did get out a little bit this time. So let's tell about the solar chAllenger quick. IT was awesome because we had the S A O badge instead of the Normal little round badge that we had.

And you know, every year, we kind of refine IT a little bit. We managed to put more people through this year than ever before because I expanded the number of work stations to ten. And so we did eight heats of ten, and that's eighty people.

Normally, I think we were doing about a forty eight or fifty something in that. So a lot of people who would always tell me at the year, and though we, I was disappointed I never could get in, we, we expanded the amount of people we ran through. And then the last few years, we've been having the special death match at the end for the winners.

And I gotto tell you that is exciting. You would not think you have just described that to a civilian. They would say, how boring is that? But boy, you get a crowd and they're watching.

And those guys are so intent. Of course, it's all on time for that. So everybody is is just racing to get to the end.

And IT was, I was very exciting. We had a couple of great prizes. We had A D M, X lighting set up and also dig key was gracious to provide us some surprises. So that was cool. But the other was I got to do the round table for reverse engineering, and I didn't that that was the first super cn round table.

I didn't know that goes up on stage that we had not done that before they take away from that was that everybody wanted more time because you get three or four long winded people up on stage and we were just get started. And I think we could have a twice that like the time and and we would have a good time. I think the audience stayed for what time we had. So I think that was good.

So yeah, I was to take away from the audience to from at least the people I talk to their, like all man, that was a cool panel. IT was just a little bit too short. Like you said that we never done a panel before. What what do we know how long a fan need to be?

We need a crowd source to mechanism, like there's a button on your seat and when you've had enough and when enough people have had enough, you call that right? I think that could easily been way too long if you would have people, yeah, you know, you just so happen. We had some live wires up there. So IT was, IT was the time went quickly.

How about you time? What you, what you like, best spend your time doing.

You know, for me, I usually wander around and see you people are working on and kind of provide any help or background information I can with the with the badge. And I got to say, and I said this on friday, I said at less as the super car went on, but I still came into the super kind a little worried about the band.

I came away um humbled for sure because I think that in the end, you know, the badge being as simple as that was really gave like the SOS and everything, the chance to shine IT all worked out because there were so many awesome s says that that were either brought with them or you know we're kind of if we're extending the definition of an s but piece together during super cn and attach to the badge for the badge hacking. You know I think IT all really worked out just on the incredible turnout for for the SOS. I'm not like everybody made N S L.

right. I I think almost everybody wanted to. I think everyone I talk to her desire, but a real life way and a lot times, even even knowing, is far out as they did that you we've doing, you know, big on the S.

S. There was the vacation for, like the board, manufacturers and that kind mess stuff up. And people had all things go on.

But a large number of attendees came with s. OS. And they came with enough s SOS to share with the class, which was really awesome. And seeing people's badges become increasingly the fisty.

But these things, right, especially we had called people, even do expansions as if the six ports were not enough, they would either go out radially or, or, you know, hard or whatever like that. IT really was an impressive array of little bits of blinking flare on everyone's chess. I always so surprised about is how creative the attendees are, even though I know they're gonna and they are gonna blow us away like they always do.

I still somehow unprepared for IT every year because you can you can predict what where they're going to do like, you know it's going to be awesome and you know they are gonna exceed your expectations, but how they'll do IT is always is always the fun part. And IT seemed like a lot of people did S A kids, which I thought was really cool, but not because, like, we asked them to or right thing. I just, I think everybody kind of gonna feel for you because if you just little things, I think it's it's a harbor han, and there's something everywhere, right?

I just hand out little kids and put little arcos for the the instructions online. And you know, that's what I did for mine. I was sort of pleasantly surprised when I was handed out that maybe half the ones I got home, it's I got to, I got to stop.

And still i'm putting together, or some people I saw to see I terran them open and put them together right at the bench. That was a whole thing that I here's g still the time in place to be put into a little electronic kits, and like looking over, look at over to my shoulder, which one do you get? You know, how do you do that?

And that sort of thing. So I got to the rap up. I felt bad because I think some people leave a little early to catch planes.

But the wrap up where everybody brought there, their SOS on stage, that was awesome. I mean, it's always fun every year. That's fun. But I was like you say, that seemed particularly fertile this year.

And is the thing I had been telling everybody who had listen that my biggest dream was to see the bed fly because in the first time, I like the first time you even showed IT to me, you know when is still kind of the prototype and you have this like radio can't layout that we're going towards. And yeah okay.

So you know, if you just extended the for those out little bit longer, already got power, already got signals for speed control, you, the pie pico would be more than fast enough to run some of a simple flight controller, I image to stretch thing body, but be prepared to make a big fly. And yet, yeah, immediately, IT was a very short flight. IT was IT was the proof grows, you know, gets off the ground, a momentarily kind of flight. But eight IT was the first supercard badge to leave the ground into its own power. So I given that one for.

say, tom, now you can no longer use your patented phrase when S A O S fly, right?

So IT fluent.

kind of the way a chicken flies like IT was. No, he was a wing assisted jump. I think we could be, we get, but no, to both of your points.

I think this is the hack day crowd, right? Like they like to build stuff. And so if you give them kids S A O kids everybodies could be sodden ing together, because that's fun to do if you give them that boy's blank prototyping.

S A O shield thing was like the most represented thing up at the bad tracking contest, because everybody used IT to bodge this into their badge, or both that into their badge. And so, you know, IT kind of now harkings back to the first ever hack day supercard badge, where they just they didn't have any idea what to do. And I think IT was Chris gamel said, I don't know.

We'll just make a protocol and then everybody, you just glum things onto IT and make their own circuits on. And like that's IT right? Like that's the hack day crap.

What are these people want to do anyway? Saw a crazy crap together. And so if you let them do IT, man, it's always a winner.

And that was sort of what IT became really obvious, the badge being as simple. And I think IT probably is the simplest badge since the proto ward badge, the badge being just kind like that blank sleep and providing the power and communications and just try to get out the way and let let people run while with what they want to create.

Now I think the tRicky part is I think that some of these genes won't go back in the bottle, right? Or I shouldn't, you know, like we can do six and say hope boards every year. But I think we're probably have to like at least you two.

I going to do with all these s OS. Well.

one thing that we have that everybody want S S and going to want to be back. But we also a little interaction between S A S. I don't want to take away from people by going back to one port. And he said to like the little per board on the S A O connector was a great way to add a little modular hacks.

So I I think that something probably just looking to have for future years to have have a little S A A birthday ard and you know, a bunch say, but S A O head is just in in the balls around the around the soaring tables. So I think that kind of proved its worth for sure as a as a mother expansion that the school part is that we have always had people make awesome badge editions, but they've always been tied to that year and really got to see a second chance. And now every S A, O, we was in reason that was made this year.

Can come back next year, I can come back for death, gone and hope. And these other events that use the same interface that that was really, really the best part is that the bar was raised s, and that effort is not going to be just limited to this time in place, is going to go forward. It's going to go out. It's going to be really cool to see how how these ripples effect the sol unity.

Well, you know, behind the scenes we had been talking your time of protocol. Ds, behind the scenes we'd been talking about over, we should put a sot of bread board one together, but someone did. I don't remember who IT was, but they had actually stripped out a little tiny proto board and sought the back of IT, which is very hard to do.

I've done that before that that metal does not want to take sorter IT was great. I was so happy to see that. But I did my little S A O that I put on a couple of weeks earlier and had said, hey, know, you come up to me during the conference and give me a proposal for what to do.

I'll give you one. And I came home with two of my left, with twenty. So now I gave out eighteen bages.

One of my favorite one, though, was where the gentleman who was doing the soldering chAllenge that, oh, I forgot and he drives up to the gate and ill has to flag me as as, hey, hey, the guy wants you. I got up to the gate. He hands me a copy of my badge that he had had made and put together.

You can tell there are different because it's a different color pcb. And so I, of course, had to give humor and he didn't actually propose anything to do with IT, but had to trade badges. So now he's got a black one, and I have a Green one.

but that was fun. See, you traded and al .

badges yeah well, well not exactly how I I love .

the the back ally pcb deals that happened at super color. Hey, hey, body. You trade P, C, B, S, and comes up, comes up outside the way .

tom said he d have the rest very POS where tom.

Well, I don't know if you guys saw the lightning talks, but first of all, dave dark co made his, like, S A O A O, which was hilarious, just an evil send up p at an even smaller adapter and made even smaller s aos that plugged into his O A O IT was pretty darn funny. But then in the lightning talk he totally took us to task. And he's like, Ellie was wondering why nobody uses the I to c and g pro connectors.

Here's why. And he goes through the history, three of like the past six of our badgers or something, all of our badgers that have ve had seo connectors on them. And they're all different and wrong in silly different ways.

And if you look at any other conference baggies, of course, this is also true. Like and sometimes that was trivial ly wrong. Like I guess the spec says that he should have three point three votes on the power thing in some years of ours.

We hooked them directly up to the batteries, but he knows two one point five vote. Our collies, it's not gonna all that different from three point three votes. I mean, come on now. But then sometimes IT was like envoys badge. The I 2c lines were tx and R， X, because the thing wasn't capable enough to do I to see which, of course, we were then proved wrong as call and andy get IT came up with I to c program for voice of badge, you know, anyway, of super cool lightning talk because essays are their community thing, right? And of course it's wild westy because what we're all crazy.

but I think it's fair that now we asked the community to raise the bar with with the contest and they responded in a huge way. yes. I so then you know expect the same of us is not completely unreasonable, right? Like you're going to ask, hey, use the I to see and make functional.

Like can we please? I like to see no a functioning connector. So h think the old bad is directly .

the first time we've ever like put emphasis on that. And the reason was exactly that because you always been the red, a step child of connector. nobody. He's ever used anything but the power lines.

From now on, I think we going to have to keep a closer eye on on that ticula, you know subsystem of the badge, whatever you for and whatever the badge does. And and I think is safe to say like where we will probably return to a more self contain functional bed for next year. It's definitely to have the proper proper to c lines.

And we're to going to see a little bit of that S A O creativity because now IT matters. We are kind of joke about that. I think we may actually need a second sea wall for the next super on because that thing was at capacity. When I last time I saw IT, I thought I was four, and then I saw somebody posted pictures in the discord. And there were even more then the last time I had passed by IT.

So so you're say next year's board won't be two batteries and to see a hole for of ever, they won on that ultimately pression of yeah .

we want do you only the second board? But maybe we take this time to modernize the design and great, what is held together with, you know, positive thoughts and zip tize talk to a whole people that were saying all, you know, see the sales and kind of response that we got all the cold stuff there, like all, I want to do an S A. All at my event, some people are saying they were not there.

So like I could be, this could be a cool opportunity to actually put something out there that could be recreated other events to. But sure, it's like huge pcbs that aren't easily recreated by the home gamer and self. So I think there is potentially an opportunity here to make like a real the other events could, and I think that be a legacy if we can do anything to be, you know, get S A O walls up at death conn. And and hope in all these other hacker coins.

absolutely. Well, now you've got a whole year to work on your next seo and sharp in your sotero skills for the sorting. So no excuses and .

get your talks ready because you know there's so many things going on. Man, that was fun.

Can't wait to see everybody next year.

all right. Well, that wraps up up for this week's hack day podcast. Thanks very much for listening. If you see anything cool or do anything cool, send us a tip tips at hack day dot com to follow the links we mentioned in the show head on over the show notes hack day dot com podcast and until next week.

keep on hacking and and now I, tom.

could you do IT again? I forgot the club?

No, and I didn't do the right course. Everything.

everybody collapse on the theory. OK 需 just.

just forget that happen. Okay, just i'm for sure everybody collapsed on .

the third that .

sounded .

much Better in my head. So siri s or me you say that syria syx, syx sirs.

to hear thon thoughts about this year, super burb.

super burb. That's to working call in next .

year from here on out, it's the supply frame super burb.