There are many ways to deal with keys: a bowl next to the entryway, a junk drawer, or you can just leave them in your pockets and hope you remember to check on Laundry Day. [Inventive Robin] has come up with his own, unique take on the key holder concept: he’s got piano keys to hold his car keys, CNC’d out of some nice hardwoods.

Of course, it’s not just a fake one-octave piano with hooks glued to it; that wouldn’t be quite enough to catch our fancy. There’s a mechanism hidden under the “white” keys– made of maple– that lowers the brass hooks when you press the, er, wooden actuator, so you can retrieve your, uh, lock-openers. Keys, that is. They’re both keys, of different sorts, because English is a wonderful language. In any case, pressing the maple key a second time lifts the brass hook, trapping the likely metal key hanging on it.

The mechanism was carved from acetyl sheet on the same Shapoko CNC machine that handled the wood, and was assembled with purchased metal rods, springs, and some plastic standoffs. It’s very satisfying to watch it work unenclosed, so check out the build video embedded below to see that in action– jump to 4:46 if you don’t want to get the whole design brief.

It’s not the most complex of hacks, but it’s beautifully done inside and out, and [Robin] is clearly happy with the result. It’s nice enough that visitors might want to photograph the key holder, but perhaps have them do it sans keys– those photos could potentially be a security risk.

Sometimes you see something super cool and think of how it would be really neat if applied in a totally different context. [MXC Builds] saw an awesome lamp from [karacreates], but decided it would be better as a PC case.

We love seeing how different techniques can be used in conjunction to make something that no one method could produce on its own, and for this build, we see [MXC Builds] use 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC, sewing, soldering, and traditional woodworking techniques.

A large part of the video is spent on the CNC process for the walnut base and power button enclosure for the build. As with any project, there are a few places requiring some creative use of the tools on hand, like the walnut piece for the base being too tall for the machine’s usual z-calibration puck or any of [MXC Builds]’s bits to do in one pass, and it’s always interesting to see how other makers solve these issues.

If you’re looking for other beautiful casemods, how about a transparent PS2 or this Art Deco number? Before you go, may we bend your ear about how PC Cases are Still Stuck in the Dark Ages?

Shelter is one of the most basic of human needs, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that we continually come up with new ways to build homes. Most building systems are open source to an extent, and the WikiHouse project tries to update the process for the internet age. 

WikiHouse is a modular building system similar to structural insulated panels (SIPs) but designed to be made on a CNC and insulated in the shop before heading to the site. Using this system, you can get the advantages of a manufactured home, but in a more distributed manner. Plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) can be used to make up the chassis of the blocks which can then be assembled very quickly on site versus traditional wooden construction.

One of the more interesting aspects of WikiHouse is that it takes design for disassembly seriously. How many houses have parts that are still good when they’re demolished to make way for something new? In most places, the good is hauled to the dump along with the bad because it isn’t economical to separate the two. Building with end of life in mind makes it so much easier to recover those materials and not waste them. There are certainly examples of careful material recovery, but they’re few and far between.

If you’re looking for some other ways to quickly build a house from wood, checkout the PlyPad or Brikawood.

When we talk about CNC machines, we almost invariably mean a computer controlled router. Naturally you can do other forms of automated cutting, say using a laser or a water jet, but what about adding computer control to other types of saws? [Andrew Consroe] recently put together a postmortem video about this experimental CNC scroll saw. While he never quite got it working reliably, we think his approach is absolutely fascinating and hope this isn’t the last we see of the idea.

Those who’ve used a scroll saw in the past might immediately see the challenge of this build: while a router bit or laser beam can cut in any direction, a scroll saw blade can only cut in one. If you tried to make a sharp turn on a scroll saw, you’ll just snap the fragile blade right off. To work around this limitation, [Andrew] came up with the brilliant rotary table that can be seen in the video after the break.

By combining motion of the gantry with table rotation, he’s able to keep the blade from ever making too tight a turn. Or at least, that’s the theory. While the machine works well enough with a marker mounted in place of the blade, [Andrew] says he never got it to the point it could reliably make cuts. It sounds like positioning errors would compound until the machine ended up moving the work piece in such a way that would snap the blade. Still, the concept definitely works; towards the end of the video he shows off a couple of pieces that were successfully cut on his machine before it threw the blade.

While we’ve actually seen DIY scroll saws in the past, this is the first computer controlled one to ever grace the pages of Hackaday. While some will no doubt argue that there’s no sense building one of these now that laser cutters have reached affordable prices, we absolutely love this design and how much thought went into it. At the very least, we figure this it the beefiest doodle-drawing robot ever constructed.

With a new decade looming over us, the hot new thing for hackers and makers everywhere is to build cyberdecks to go with the flashy black-and-neon clothing that the sci-fi films of old predicted we’d all be wearing come next year. [Phil Hagelberg] has been designing one based on his own ergonomic keyboard, prioritizing not only form but also function.

The Atreus mechanical keyboard has a split layout that foregoes the traditional typewriter-inherited staggered arrangement in favor of one that better fits the user’s hands. The reduced number of keys limits hand movement for a more comfortable writing experience, however if you use function keys often, the trade-off is that you’ll need to use an auxiliary key to access them.

The deck [Phil] documents for us here is built from the ground up around that same design and aims to be small enough for travel, yet pleasant enough for serious use. It’s gone through four revisions so far, including an interesting one where the keyboard is laid out on the sides for using while standing up. As for the brains of the machine, the past revisions have used different flavors of Raspberry Pi and even a Samsung Galaxy S4 phone, though the latest model has a Pine64 running the show. How much has changed between each finished prototype really goes to show that you don’t have to get it right the first time, and it’s always good to experiment with a new idea to see what works.

[Phil] is now moving onto a fifth prototype, and hopes to eventually sell kits for building the whole cyberdeck along with the kits already available for the standalone keyboard. We’ve been struck by the creativity shown in these cyberdeck builds, which range from reusing retro computer shells to completely printing out a whole new one for a unique look. We can’t say for sure if this custom form-factor will eventually surpass mass-produced laptops, but it sure would be hella cool if it did.

Many different projects started with the same thought: “That’s really expensive… I wonder if I could build my own for less.” Success is rewarded with satisfaction on top of the money saved, but true hacker heroes share their work so that others can build their own as well. We are happy to recognize such generosity with the Hackaday Prize [Robinhood] achievement.

Achievements are a new addition to our Hackaday Prize, running in parallel with our existing judging and rewards process. Achievements are a way for us to shower recognition and fame upon creators who demonstrate what we appreciate from our community.

Fortunately there is no requirement to steal from the rich to unlock our [Robinhood] achievement, it’s enough to give away fruits of price-reduction labor. And unlocking an achievement does not affect a project’s standings in the challenges, so some of these creators will still collect coveted awards. The list of projects that have unlocked the [Robinhood] achievement will continue to grow as the Hackaday Prize progresses, check back regularly to see the latest additions!

In the meantime, let’s look at a few notable examples that have already made the list:

Affordable Tools

A surefire path to success is to make big pieces of equipment available at a much lower price than their predecessors. Such was the thinking behind Maslow, a $500 CNC router designed to turn ideas into reality one 4′ x 8′ plywood sheet at a time. We first featured the Maslow when they were in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign that was ultimately successful, and then we cheered their ripple effect enabling projects like the PlyPad tiny home. A Maslow was actively cutting samples in a windy outdoor tent at Bay Area Maker Faire, showing off how it’s more portable than industrial CNC routers and working in conditions more austere than a factory floor.

Stepping down in size but not ambition, we have a 3D printer project taking a few steps off the beaten path. As we outlined earlier, this design skips the expensive precision linear guides typical of its peers, which the Maslow did as well. This printer also incorporates one of the latest novelties in the 3D printing world, a conveyor belt print bed for unlimited Z-axis travel. And don’t forget the design has a short parts list, many of which can be 3D-printed. A design that stays true to the spiritual roots of RepRap is one we’d love to see succeed.

Affordable Instruments

Building affordable alternatives to expensive instrumentation is another way to unlock the [Robinhood] achievement. [Kris Winer] noticed a few interesting chips in the AMS catalog and saw potential for a $25 reflectance spectrometer. This isn’t merely cheaper than science lab instruments, it’s even cheaper than the typical sensor evaluation board AMS sells for >$100. We like where this project is going. And remember when we said it’s possible to win both achievement and challenges? This entry also placed on the Open Hardware Design Challenge winner’s list.

Going into the invisible world, those of us who play with analog circuits (especially RF design) knows that simulation will only take us so far. When it comes time to go beyond the theoretical and measure the reality of what a circuit is actually doing, we need a network analyzer. Historically an expensive instrument, the TEENY open network analyzer project aims to put a simple one in reach of electronics hobbyists on tight budgets. Knowing what the circuit is actually doing means less stumbling around in the dark and less frustrating debugging. Which leads to happier hackers and successful projects.

Affordable Components

An equally valuable approach is to work from the bottom up, reducing cost of components so that others can create on a lean budget. [Craig Watson]’s air pressure regulator module was motivated by his microfluidics control system project. Realizing that a pressure control system is valuable for more than microfludics, he started highlighting the regulator separately so other fields — like soft robotics — can run with it.

A different kind of pressure sensing can be built from Goophene, a homemade variant of a lab grown material that is sensitive enough to detect spider footsteps. (Yes, you read that right.) The instructions on Goophene’s project page is the distillation of countless hours the creator spent trial-and-error replicating results of the research paper at home. Now anyone can build Goophene – which dramatically changes its electrical resistance in response to small mechanical forces – for a few dollars in raw materials. As of this writing, the latest formulation is sensitive enough to detect a beetle walking, with the eventual goal of sensing ant footsteps.

Affordable Is Good, Free Is Better

But the project that most closely follows the footsteps of Robin Hood is the solar lantern soldering kit. The solar lantern itself is not the special part, as it is functionally similar to small solar-powered backyard lights most of us can pick up at our local dollar store. It’s how the kits will be deployed that is interesting: the team intends to use these kits to teach young children how to solder, demystifying technology by giving them a taste of building something themselves. Furthermore, these classes are held where the kids don’t always have reliable illumination at home when the sun goes down. The solar lantern thus serves multiple purposes: as a teaching tool, as an inspiration, and as a practical light source.

The team hopes that participation in the Hackaday Prize will get them funding and publicity to attract more funding, because they want to teach their classes and provide solar lanterns at no cost to the kids. Spreading knowledge and material wealth of lanterns to these children, helping build hope towards their future. It is quite an admirable goal making this team our modern-day Robin Hoods of the Hackaday Prize.

It’s been a few years since we first started hearing about “tools of the future changing the way we work” but this astounding whole-room floor inlay might be the best argument for them yet.

A couple of years ago we wrote a hands-on preview of a unique tool called the Shaper Origin. If a milling machine is classically defined as having a stationary tool head with moving stock, the Origin is the reverse. To use an Origin the user adheres specially marked tape to the stock material, then holds the origin down and moves it much like a hand router.

The Origin has a camera which tracks the fiducial patterns on the tape, allowing it to know its precise position, even across an entire room. The operator sees a picture on the screen of the tool that guides them with superimposed lines, while the tool head makes its own precision adjustments to perfectly cut the design in the X, Y, and Z.

But what do you use a tool like this for? Cutting boards, small tables, and toy blocks are fine examples but don’t highlight any unique features of the tool. Many could just as easily be made using a ShopBot, X-Carve, Carvey, or any of their ilk. What you can’t do with any of those tools (or really anything besides manual labor, endless patience, and master skill) is inlay an entire floor in situ.

[Mark Scheller] (eight time winner of Wood Floor of the Year awards) used an Origin to cut a curvaceous 22 foot long rendition of the first 9 bars of Handel’s Passacaglia into the floor of a lucky homeowner’s music room. Without decades of practice, it’s difficult to imagine doing this any way besides with a Shaper Origin. You can’t put an entire room into a CNC router. The individual floorboards could be cut, but that would be tedious and increasingly difficult as the room gets larger. With the Origin it seems almost trivial. Do the design, place the marking tape, and cut. The same model is used to cut the inlays for a perfect fit. This is an incredible example of a unique use for this unusual tool!