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A DIY Tracker Tough Enough for the Arctic

Cars That Think

Unfortunately, the cost of buying instruments commercially severely limited how many trackers we could deploy. So, I set about building an open-source ice tracker from DIY components that not only proved to be much, much cheaper but also much more capable than the commercial options.

DIY 94
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IoT-ize Your Old Gadgets With a Mechanical Hijacking Device

Cars That Think

Connectivity usually comes at a premium, and it also usually involves buying a brand new whatever it is, because new hardware and software and services are required. If these robots are commercialized before the full deployment of the IoT, they could more intelligently provide the MHD experience.

DIY 137
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Make Your Own Digital Pinhole Camera

Cars That Think

Recent years have seen an increase in interest in pinhole photography, with a variety of cameras being sold commercially and international photography events. On the downside, both off-the-shelf and DIY pinhole cameras use film or photographic paper.

DIY 88
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Can This DIY Rocket Program Send an Astronaut to Space?

Cars That Think

That successful mission in August 2018 was a huge step toward our goal of sending an amateur astronaut to the edge of space aboard one of our DIY rockets. Rockets built by commercial players like. We can't afford to test our systems to the extent that commercial companies do (that's why we'll never sell rides on our rockets).

DIY 136
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DIY Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy with a Raspberry Pi Pico

Cars That Think

So when I decided to build a cheap DIY scintillating gamma spectrometer, it was the natural choice—although I didn’t realize I’d find myself navigating around teething problems of the sort that often affect a first-generation integrated circuit. This article appears in the July 2022 print issue as “DIY Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy.”.

DIY 100
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Smith Electric Vehicles Delivers First Battery-Electric Truck into Ireland

Green Car Congress

Building materials retailer Grange Builders Providers, of Baldoyle, Dublin, has purchased a Smith Newton truck for deliveries of building and DIY products. As one of new Government incentives in support of the goal, any company buying the Smith Newton can write down 100% of the cost against Corporation Tax, in the first year of purchase.

Ireland 150
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A Web-Enabled, High Quality, DIY Audio Amp

Cars That Think

November 2018 Hands On article, “DIY Pro Audio ” in IEEE Spectrum , and it convinced me it was possible, although I wanted to go beyond just a power amplifier to something more like my lamented Sansui. In commercial product development, an optimized microcontroller would be the way to go, but for my DIY project, a Pi was perfect.

DIY 99