As the holiday party season fades away into memory and we get into the swing of the new year, Elliot Williams is joined on the Hackaday Podcast by Jenny List for a roundup of what’s cool in the world of Hackaday. In the news this week, who read the small print and noticed that Benchy has a non-commercial licence? As the takedown notices for Benchy derivatives fly around, we muse about the different interpretations of open source, and remind listeners to pay attention when they choose how to release their work.

The week gave us enough hacks to get our teeth into, with Elliot descending into the rabbit hole of switch debouncing, and Jenny waxing lyrical over a crystal oscillator. Adding self-driving capability to a 30-year-old Volvo caught our attention too, as did the intriguing Cheap Yellow Display, an ESP32 module that has (almost) everything. Meanwhile in the quick hacks, a chess engine written for a processor architecture implemented entirely in regular expressions impressed us a lot, as did the feat of sending TOSLINK across London over commercial fibre networks. Enjoy the episode, and see you again next week!

[Editor’s Note: Libsyn, our podcasting syndicator, is bugging out. I’ll keep trying, but until they get their service back into gear, I’ve uploaded the podcast here, and as always you can just download the podcast for yourself. Sorry for the inconvenience, and enjoy!]
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Episode 298 Show Notes:

News:

• 3DBenchy Starts Enforcing Its No Derivatives License
• 2025 Hackaday Europe CFP: We Want You!

What’s that Sound?

• Think you know what this week’s nature sound is? Fill out this form with your best guess!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Self Driving Like It’s 1993
• Is A Cheap Frequency Standard Worth It?
• Button Debouncing With Smart Interrupts
• More Things To Do With Your Cheap Yellow Display
• All-Band Receiver Lets You Listen To All The Radio At Once
• Pi Pico Makes SSTV Reception A Snap

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • Regular (Expression) Chess
  • Try A PWMPot
  • Gaze Upon This Omni-directional Treadmill’s Clever LEGO Construction

  
  

• Jenny’s Picks:
  
  • A New Life For A Conference Badge, Weighing Bees
  • 38C3: It’s TOSLINK, Over Long Distance Fibre
  • A Street For Every Date

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Running AI Locally Without Spending All Day On Setup
• One Small Step: All About Stepper Motors

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