Tinkering with Klipper: Making The ManiPilator Robotic Arm[Leo Goldstien]’s entry into the world of robotics has been full of stops and starts. Like many beginners, he found traditional robotics instructions overwhelming and hard to follow, bogged down with dense math that often obscured the bigger picture. So he decided to approach things differently and create something with his own hands. The result? A 3D-printed robotic arm he affectionately calls “ManiPilator.”
This article is the first in a three-part series documenting [Leo]’s hands-on approach to learning robotics from the ground up. Building ManiPilator became an opportunity to learn by doing, and the project took him on a journey of experimenting, failing, and eventually succeeding in tasks that seemed deceptively simple at first glance. Each hurdle provided him with insights that more traditional learning methods hadn’t delivered. Below is one of the videos [Leo] captured, to show one step in the process: doing a check using multiple motors.
To make his project work, [Leo] relied on open-source software like Klipper, piecing together code and hardware in a way that made sense to him. In sharing his story, he offers fellow beginners an approachable perspective on robotics, with practical insights and candid reflections on the challenges and breakthroughs.
[Leo]’s project shows that there’s more than one way to start exploring robotics, and that sometimes the best way to learn is simply to dive in and start building. Follow along with his journey as he tackles the complexities of robotics, one step at a time.

Tearing Down a Digital Scope from ’78If you’re a fan of vintage electronics and DIY tinkering, you’ll find this teardown by [Thomas Scherrer] fascinating. In a recent video, he delves into a rare piece of equipment: the Data Lab Transient Recorder DL 901. This device looks like a classic one-channel oscilloscope, complete with all the knobs and settings you’d expect.
The DL 901, made by Data Laboratories Ltd., is a mystery even to [Thomas], who couldn’t find any documentation online. From the DC offset and trigger settings to the sweep time controls, the DL 901 is equipped to handle slow, high-resolution analog-to-digital conversion. The circuitry includes TTL chips and a PMI DAAC 100, a 10-bit digital-to-analog converter. [Thomas] speculates it uses a successive approximation technique for analog-to-digital conversion—a perfect blend of analog finesse and digital processing for its time.
Despite its intriguing features, the DL 901 suffers from a non-responsive analog input system, limiting the teardown to a partial exploration. For those who enjoyed past Hackaday articles on oscilloscope teardowns and analog tech, this one is a treat. Watch the video to see more details and the full process of uncovering this vintage device’s secrets.

AWS CEO Matt Garman on generative AI, open source, and closing servicesIt was quite a surprise when Adam Selipsky stepped down as the CEO of Amazon’s AWS cloud computing unit. What was maybe just as much of a surprise was that Matt Garman succeeded him. Garman joined Amazon as an intern in 2005 and became a full-time employee in 2006, working on the early AWS products. […]
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MPW: Women in Music Tech Summit Taking place on 19 and 20 October 2024, the Women in Music Tech Summit will features a collection of masterclasses that aim to empower female and non-gender conforming musicians.

Vitalik Buterin donates 100 ETH to Roman Storm defense fundThe United States Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the Tornado Cash mixer in 2022 — accusing it of facilitating money laundering.

OpenAI closes the largest VC round of all timeWelcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re diving into OpenAI’s $6.6 billion fundraising round, the fifth Cybertruck recall in less than a year, and a neat project that’s Shazam-ing songs heard on a San Francisco street. Let’s get into it. OpenAI closed the largest VC round of all time this week. The startup […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

See the “Pause-and-Attach” Technique for 3D Printing in Action[3DPrintBunny] is someone who continually explores new techniques and designs in 3D printing, and her latest is one she calls “pause-and-attach”, which she demonstrates by printing a vase design with elements of the design splayed out onto the print bed.
The splayed-out elements get peeled up and attached to the print during a pause.
At a key point, the print is paused and one peels up the extended bits, manually attaching them to sockets on the main body of the print. Then the print resumes and seals everything in. The result is something that appears to defy the usual 3D printer constraints, as you can see here.
Pausing a 3D print to insert hardware (like nuts or magnets) is one thing, but we can’t recall seeing anything quite like this approach. It’s a little bit reminiscent of printing foldable structures to avoid supports in that it prints all of its own self-connecting elements, but at the same time it’s very different.
We’ve seen [3DPrintBunny]’s innovative approaches before with intentional stringing used as a design element and like the rest of her work, it’s both highly visual and definitely it’s own thing. You can see the whole process in a video she posted to social media, embedded below.

I tried out another 'pause-and-attach' type print today using some strings. The strings give it extra flexibility and allow me to add a twist pic.twitter.com/gIytsb8NEm
— 3DPrintBunny (@3DPrintBunny) October 3, 2024

Introducing the KanaChord Plus Keyboard カナコード・プラス・キーボードWe love to watch your projects grow as much as you do. Really, we’re like proud grandparents around here. So it’s great to see that [Mac Cody] is back with the KanaChord Plus Keyboard, which supports an astounding 6,165 Kanji as well as 6,240 of the most common Japanese words that contain Kanji. This is all in addition to supporting the Kana characters, which make up the rest of Japanese writing (more on that in a minute).
If you need to input Japanese, this is a dream come true. If you’re trying to learn Japanese in the first place, this could be exactly what you need to become fluent.

Input errors are shown with red lighting.
Without getting into it too much, just know that the Japanese writing system is made up of Kanji, which are Chinese characters, Hirigana, and Katakana. The latter two are collectively known as the Kana, and there’s this table that lays out the pairing of vowels and consonants. For [Mac Cody], it was this layout that inspired this chording keyboard that covers all three.
What this keyboard actually does is generate Unicode macros to render Japanese characters using chords — pressing multiple keys at once as you would on a piano. The most obvious improvement aside from the huge gain in characters is the display.
As with the original KanaChord, one of the great features of the KanaChord Plus is that it uses color in order to indicate character type, Kana mode, and even provide error feedback. Another is the slide switch that selects one of three Unicode key sequences in order to support different computer platforms.
But the touchscreen display is the addition where things get really interesting. As Kana are typed, an incremental Input Method Editor (IME) searches the embedded dictionaries to display an ordered list of Japanese words and Kanji that the user can scroll through and select.
Just like the original, the brains of this operation is a Raspberry Pi Pico. [Mac Cody] used an Adafruit NeoKey 5×6 Ortho Snap-Apart keyboard PCB and 30 Cherry MX switches that we choose to believe are blue. Looking toward the future, [Mac Cody] plans to support the Pico 2, and will update GitHub when everything is ready. Again, there’s a ton of detail in the hardware section, so be sure to check that out.

Getting It Done: Last Week in DIY and Indie MusicLast week, our tips and advice for do-it-yourselfers and independent musician news covered how market music with YouTube Shorts, how to get a job at a talent agency, and more…
The post Getting It Done: Last Week in DIY and Indie Music appeared first on Hypebot.

REWIND: New Music Industry’s Last Week In ReviewIt was another busy week of music industry news with scalpers ahead of the Oasis reunion, indie artists and labels at odd with with TikTok, and more…
The post REWIND: New Music Industry’s Last Week In Review appeared first on Hypebot.

AI chatbots are getting worse over time — academic paperA dwindling consumer interest in chatbots caused a drop in AI-sector revenues during the second business quarter of 2024.

Avicii auction raises over $700,000, with guitars and personal DJ set up selling for the highest pricesAn auction of Avicii’s personal items and music gear has raised over $700,000 USD for the mental health charity set up by his family.
The auction took place on 1 October, and saw 267 items that belonged to the artist go under the hammer. All proceeds have been donated to The Tim Bergling Foundation, which was set up under his real name by his parents after he tragically died by suicide in 2018.

READ MORE: Watch never-before-seen footage of Avicii’s last-ever Sweden show

7,732,805 SEK was raised from the auction in total, which equates to approximately $695,952 USD (based on current conversion rates), and bids were placed from over 40 countries, as reported by EDM.com.
The highest selling items were Avicii’s Martin Custom X Series acoustic guitar, which sold for 280,000 SEK ($25,500) and his 2015 Fender Telecaster, which sold for 240,000 SEK ($22,000).
A personal DJ setup consisting of two Pioneer CDJ-2000 Nexus DJ Multi-Players and a Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus Mixer in their original black cases also found a new home, and sold for over $11,000. A pair of Sennheiser headphones also sold for 80,000 SEK ($7,000).
“We are very happy with the outcome of yesterday’s charity auction, and the funds these items have generated will help us in our continued work for young people’s mental health and well-being,” comments Stefan Rudels, acting director of The Tim Bergling Foundation.
Cecilia Gave, CEO of Stockholms Auktionsverk, adds: “It feels fantastic to convey this significant amount to The Tim Bergling Foundation. With this auction, we once again confirm that Stockholms Auktionsverk is the given choice when it comes to selling unique collections. We are very pleased to see how The Avicii Collection has also appealed to a younger audience. Many here in the hall have placed their very first auction bids today, and it feels very honourable for us to be a part of that.”
Among his music gear, a number of clothing items and other gadgets were sold. All final sale prices and items can now be viewed online.
The post Avicii auction raises over $700,000, with guitars and personal DJ set up selling for the highest prices appeared first on MusicTech.

U2’s live sound engineer says he tried to break The Sphere’s monster sound system: “I tried my best and I couldn’t break it”Longtime U2 live sound engineer Joe O’Herlihy has pulled back the curtain on the monster sound system powering the band’s groundbreaking Las Vegas Sphere residency.
Speaking to U2.com, O’Herlihy reveals that he received a call from Bono to check out the Sphere and its sound system in as early as August 2021.

READ MORE: Behringer’s new Grind hybrid semi-modular synth features oscillators from Mutable Instruments

“[Bono asked] if I could go over to Berlin and see if I could break it.” the engineer recalls. “That has been my brief since year dot. And to be perfectly honest, I tried my level best and I couldn’t break it.”
“I went to Leipzig, to the Congress Messe where there was an exhibition of the sound system – the first time they’d put together sixty of these boxes. They had industry types like myself give it a listen. I was scheduled to have a brief demo, but I was so enthused by the whole thing that I actually stayed for the week.”
To give you a sense of what O’Herlihy was dealing with, the ‘Sphere Immersive Sound’ system — developed by Berlin company Holoplot — is comprised of 1,586 fixed and 300 mobile Holoplot X1 Matrix Array loudspeaker modules, and features a total of 167,000 individually amplified loudspeaker drivers.
Using advanced 3D Audio-Beamforming technology, the system delivers highly precise, consistent and crystal-clear audio to the audience. The entire sound system is also completely hidden behind Sphere’s 160,000 square foot interior LED display plane, which wraps up, over and around the audience for a fully immersive environment.
Ready to put the system through its paces, O’Herlihy brought multitrack recordings of U2 tours held in venues across the world, which included the Sydney Cricket Ground and the 55,000-capacity Phillipene Arena in Manilla.
“I did that to get an idea of the sonic value of all of those,” says O’Herlihy, who was blown away by what he found. “I ran extremely loud and I ran extremely hard to see if I could break it or not. The sub-bass and all of that energy was second-to-none.”
“When Adam [Clayton] steps on the [Moog] Taurus pedals it’s like a low-end heaven. When you deliver it at full-pelt it’s got an incredible wow factor.”

O’Herlihy soon followed up by sending Bono and The Edge an email detailing his findings, which ultimately paved the way for the 40-show run of Achtung Baby Live that concluded earlier this year: “My opening line was, ‘this is going to be quite a biblical report’, because this is what happened. Eight pages later after explaining everything that I had been through, my parting shot on it was – ‘you guys definitely have to the best the first band into The Sphere, because this is the future.’”
Read more music tech news.
The post U2’s live sound engineer says he tried to break The Sphere’s monster sound system: “I tried my best and I couldn’t break it” appeared first on MusicTech.

How drum and bass inspires artists from across genres
From PinkPantheress and Bring Me The Horizon to NewJeans and BTS, hear how artists across genres find inspiration in drum and bass.

CCC To Host “Tuning Into Television: Building Your Career As A TV Music Composer”“Tuning Into Television: Building Your Career As A TV Music Composer”Tuesday, October 8, 2024 ZOOM WEBINAR2:30 PM PDT - 4:00 PM PDT

REGISTER HERE

Join the CCC for an engaging panel discussion on building a career as a television music composer, designed to provide you with the tools and knowledge needed to take your career writing music to the next level! In this session, seasoned professionals and industry experts will share invaluable insights and practical advice on how to find your path to success in the challenging and fast-paced world of composing music for TV.From understanding the demands of the industry to honing your storytelling skills, networking effectively, and securing your first opportunities, panelists will cover a wide range of topics. Learn about navigating the creative process with producers and executives, the newest industry trends, and the importance of building a strong portfolio that showcases your unique talent and style, and more.Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights, ask questions, and connect with like-minded individuals who are passionate about the art composing for TV. Whether you’re a recent graduate, a professional musician looking to transition into television, or simply curious about the world of TV music, this is sure to inspire and inform as you embark on your career journey.The post CCC To Host “Tuning Into Television: Building Your Career As A TV Music Composer” first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.