Awesome Tech

Think you can do better than WTF With Marc Maron or The Joe Rogan Experience? All you need is a smartphone, the Professional Podcast Masterclass Bundle, and a good mic so you don’t sound like an amateur. JLab Audio’s Talk Pro USB Microphone optimizes sound quality for podcasts, music, streaming, and gaming.

If you’ve ever played with a vintage manual typewriter, you know how hard it can be just to hit those mechanical keys with enough force. JBV Creative built a custom robot that uses 3D-printed “fingers” and servo motors to type text and ASCII art on an old Remington Rand Office Riter. Money shot at 15:34.

The Mavis is a build-it-yourself analog synth kit that embodies the spirit of Moog. The compact instrument has a 24-point patch bay, an analog oscillator, a voltage-controlled filter, a 4-stage envelope generator, and a sample-and-hold circuit. It easily integrates with any Moog semi-modular or Eurorack system too.

Upgrade your laptop with this powerful docking station from BlitzWolf. This 14-in-1 docking station lets you connect three 4K displays via HDMI and DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 devices, two USB-C devices, and more. It’s also an enclosure for an M.2 SATA SSD. It’s on sale for a limited time at Banggood.

After building several self-balancing machines, engineer James Bruton wanted to see if he could make one that could help him walk across a narrow beam. It uses a large motorized wheel that changes direction based on the angle detected by a sensor. The trick is not letting his body compensate too much for its motion.

There was a time when finding what you wanted on Google was a simple task. But over the years, the ubiquitous search engine has modified its algorithms and design so much that it can overwhelm with irrelevant information and ads. Comedian Ryan George pokes fun at what it’s like to run a search these days.

A couple of years back, Stuff Made Here created a basketball hoop that was always in the right place to catch the ball. Now he’s back with an upgraded, cable-driven robot with six degrees of freedom so it can catch balls thrown long or short or off-axis. Like all good engineering projects, it required lots of failures along the way.

It was just yesterday that we paid our respects to Floppotron 2.0. As we hoped, Paweł Zadrożniak was at work building an even bigger and better electromechanical band. Floppotron 3.0 has 512 floppy disk drives, 16 hard disks, and four flatbed scanners for a richer and fuller sound than its predecessors.

Paweł Zadrożniak’s electromechanical orchestra has entertained millions with over 120 covers of popular songs. Now, the Floppotron 2.0 is being retired, and Paweł is sending it off with a performance of Andrea Bocelli’s Con Te Partirò, and there’s not a dry eye in the house. We’re hoping he’s just making room for Floppotron 3.0.

Loupedeck takes on the Elgato Stream Deck with their own programmable streaming controller. The Live S console has 15 touch-sensitive LCD buttons, four tactile buttons, and two push-button analog dials, all of which can be used to control popular streaming and creative apps.

Engineer James Bruton is fascinated with omni-directional wheels. For this video, he set out to make a vehicle that rolls on three split-hemisphere balls which can move in any direction. He’s since added a seat to it, resulting in what is basically the world’s most powerful office chair.

This powerful Android gaming system is perfect for emulator fanatics. Its 8-core Dimensity 1200 chip is fast enough to run upscaled PS2 games at 60 fps. What really sets it apart is its magnetic controller modules, which provide separate FPS, MOBA, and Xbox-style layouts. ETA Prime has a great hands-on review.

Soldering surface-mounted components on circuit boards can be challenging without industrial soldering equipment. But maker.moekoe shows off a method for soldering multiple components using soldering paste and a temperature-controlled clothes iron to melt all of the solder into place at once.

This miniaturized version of the classic Fender Tone-Master amplifier is perfect for practice sessions. Its vintage styling includes metal amp corners, a brown grille cloth, and white knobs for adjusting gain, volume, and tone. It packs a 1-watt amp and a pair of 2″ full-range speakers, and runs on a single 9-volt battery.

This series of online courses will get you up and running with four popular technologies for building web applications. You’ll learn the basics of programming back-end code in Python and Java, along with front-end technologies like the Tailwind CSS framework and SASS/SCSS. Another great deal from The Awesomer Shop.

This camera from Sionyx is engineered to improve nighttime safety for boaters. Its ultra-low-light BSI CMOS sensor reveals hidden obstacles even on a moonless night. Its waterproof enclosure can withstand heavy splashing, and it can output video to your boat’s multifunction display or wirelessly on your mobile device.