Hallo 
Ich bin auf der Suche nach einer Mitfahrgelegenheit von Stuttgart nach Lecco zur Hackaday Europe 2026 Konferenz. Kennt jemand jemanden, der zufällig auch auf dem Weg dorthin ist? #Hackaday #HAD #HackadayEurope2026
I am currently searching for a ride from Stuttgart to Lecco for Hackaday Europe 2026. Is there anyone passing by and could take me along?
A Suction-Driven Seven-Segment Display
An orange silicone sheet is shown in front, with depressions in the shape of a 7-segment character "4". A man's hand is holding a pipe leading to a series of needles, which enter the block behind the silicone sheet. [https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/pneumatic_seven_segment_display.png?w=800] There’s a long history of devices originally used for communication being made into computers, with relay switching circuits, vacuum tubes, and transistors being some well-known examples. In a smaller way, pneumatic tubes likewise deserve a place on the list; [soiboi soft], for example, has used pneumatic systems to build actuators, logic systems, and displays, including this latching seven-segment display [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1BLGpE5zH0]. Each segment in the display is made of a cavity behind a silicone sheet; when a vacuum is applied, the front sheet is pulled into the cavity. A vacuum-controlled switch (much like a transistor, as we’ve covered before [https://hackaday.com/2025/10/15/printing-an-air-powered-integrated-circuit-for-squishy-robots/]) connects to the cavity, so that each segment can be latched open or closed. Each segment has two control lines: one to pressurize or depressurize the cavity, and one to control the switch. The overall display has four seven-segment digits, with seven common data lines and four control lines, one for each digit. The display is built in five layers: the front display membrane, a frame to clamp this in place, the chamber bodies, the membrane which forms the switches, and the control channels. The membranes were cast in silicone using 3D-printed molds, and the other parts were 3D-printed on a glass build plate to get a sufficiently smooth, leak-free surface. As it was, the display used a truly intimidating number of fasteners to ensure airtight connections between the different layers. [soiboi soft] used the display for a clock, so it sits at the front of a 3D-printed enclosure containing an Arduino, a small vacuum pump, and solenoid valves. This capacity for latching and switching, combined with pneumatic actuators [https://hackaday.com/2025/04/08/salamander-robot-is-squishy/], raises the interesting possibility of purely air-powered robots. It’s even possible to 3D-print pneumatic channels by using a custom nozzle [https://hackaday.com/2026/02/13/3d-printing-pneumatic-channels-with-dual-materials-for-soft-robots/]. Thanks to [Norbert Mezei] for the tip! — From Blog – Hackaday [https://hackaday.com/] via this RSS feed [https://hackaday.com/blog/feed/]
Interesting take from #Hackaday on #Markdown
https://hackaday.com/2026/04/05/making-the-case-against-markdown/
Markdown is great when you just want to write. It keeps you in flow, but the moment you need full layouts or deep structure, it falls apart, and then you’re back to HTML, with less control than if you’d written semantic HTML from the start.
So where do you draw the line: docs only, or full sites?
My view: docs only.
What's yours?
📄 🖋️ 💻
Really cool flashback.
Interesting article from #Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/2026/04/02/sega-meganet-online-gaming-in-1990/
It looks at how #Sega tried to build an #OnlineGaming and utility network in the early 90s using the #segamegadrive.
Did anyone here ever try MegaNet?
Exposing a Radiation-Hardened 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Receiver to 500 Kilograys
[https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/close-up-of-a-receiver-chip.webp?w=800]Exposing the Wi-Fi chip to gamma radiation. (Credit: Yasuto Narukiyo et al, 2026) [https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/radiation_resistance_test_yasuto_narukiyo_et_al_2026_thumb.jpg?w=400]https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/radiation_resistance_test_yasuto_narukiyo_et_al_2026_thumb.jpg Exposing the Wi-Fi chip to gamma radiation. (Credit: Yasuto Narukiyo et al, 2026) From outer space to down here on Earth, there are many places where ionizing radiation levels are high enough that they effectively bar access for humans, but also make life miserable for anything containing semiconductor technology. This is especially true for anything involving wireless communications, such as Wi-Fi. However, recently Japanese researchers have created a Wi-Fi chip that is claimed to be so radiation-hardened [https://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics-in-nuclear-industry] that it can be used even in gamma ray-rich environments, such as in the worst contaminated depths of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. The indicated dose exposure of 500 kilograys that the chip survived during testing is quite significant. A single gray (Gy) is the absorption of one joule of energy per kilogram of matter. In radiation therapy, a solid epithelial tumor can receive as much as 60 to 80 Gy in a single dose, for example. That this Wi-Fi chip was still able to function after such a large cumulative dose was therefore quite impressive, as it rivals what space-based probes receive over numerous years. Unfortunately, the research paper [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11408968] is paywalled, but the PR article [https://www.isct.ac.jp/en/news/579sx0x3qhha] from the Tokyo Institute of Science fills in a few more details along with the IEEE Spectrum article. The key was reducing the number of transistors to offer as few targets for radiation as possible. Further inductors were used instead of transistors, for example, variable-gain, as these are less sensitive to ionizing radiation. Remaining transistors were physically enlarged, reducing the number of parallel segments and using NMOS transistors instead of PMOS, due to the latter’s higher radiation resistance. Although degradation in receiver performance was observed after successive blasts at 300 kGy and then 500 kGy, the change was on the order of 1.5-1.6 dB. The next challenge is to make a Wi-Fi transmitter, which is much harder and may require the addition of materials like diamond. Designing for a hostile radiation environment is an art form unto itself [https://hackaday.com/2026/03/29/self-healing-cmos-imager-to-withstand-jupiters-radiation-belt/]. And if you are generating radiation, you have to be extra careful [https://hackaday.com/2015/10/26/killed-by-a-machine-the-therac-25/]. — From Blog – Hackaday [https://hackaday.com/] via this RSS feed [https://hackaday.com/blog/feed/]
Gustav
3i/Atlas
Clovis 
Daniele Verducci 🧉
Dean
Jay
