On another note, there was an error today causing the homepage to redirect to this Incoming Geek Montage Game post. That has been fixed. Sorry about that!

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• Next HOPE badge hacking primer
  [Travis Goodspeed] is taking a look at the attendee badges for this year’s Next HOPE conference. He’s given us a pretty good look at what is on the board, what it means to you, and how you can get at it. Of course the final hardware specs are a secret until conference time, but this [...]
• Update: Atari pause button
  The Atari 2600 pause circuit is now available in a kit form. We saw this pause method back in February and the kit uses the same circuit. We don’t really need a kit for this, the board is very simple to throw together. But we do appreciate the detailed installation instructions (PDF) that accompany it. [...]

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• PSP homebrew using the Half-Byte Loader
  [Rich] tipped us off about the Half-Byte Loader which lets you run homebrew on late-model Sony PlayStation Portables. Above you can see a PSP Go running Doom (a screenshot from the video after the break), which is a prerequisite for any cracked device. HBL uses an exploit in the game demo of Patapon 2, which [...]
• Audio breakout box for MacBook Pro
  [Billy] wanted to use the audio connector on his MacBook Pro for input and output at the same time. He knew it could be done because Apple sells headphones with built-in microphones that work with the computer. He set out to build a breakout box so that he could connect the components of his choice [...]

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• Swarm Light at Art Basel
  What has 9000 LEDs, 3000 MSP430 processors, six XMOS XC-2 Ethernet modules, and goes blinkity-blink-blink? It’s Swarm Light, an art installation shown at this year’s Art Basel exhibition. [Fredrik Petrini] worked on the hardware that went into building the group of three 3D cubes of LED light modules. Unlike so many art pieces we see [...]
• Tetris code theory explained
  [Graham] designed this PIC based Tetris game on a single board. The hardware is quite nice but we enjoyed his explanation of the graphics algorithm that he used. Having coded Tetris from the ground up ourselves we understand how difficult it is to explain how the program works. Tracking pieces already on the board as well as [...]

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• Building a SuperMacro lens
  [Lozzless] has a steady hand and plenty of confidence in his hacking skills. The video above is worth watching for the full eight minutes. In it you’ll see him convert a lens into what he calls a SuperMacro lens with a working aperture. The process involves fashioning a connector ring from a lens cap, modifying [...]
• Coachella lamp
  This little art piece might be just the thing to add that mad scientist look to your room. It’s called the Coachella lamp and it makes use of several throwback display devices. At the top an Argon discharge lamp puts out ultraviolet light. Protruding from each of the four sides you can see a set [...]

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• Nerf sentry turret
  With exams behind him [Adam Greig] had time to make a Nerf sentry gun. It’s actually quite easy to pull everything together. He’s got a netbook running Motion, an open source motion sensing program for use with a webcam. When movement is detected an Arduino, connected via a USB cable, actuates a servo to pull [...]
• Candle stop motion: how’s it done?
  [Ollie] tipped us off about a stop motion video that uses a grid of tea candles to animate some classically pixellated game graphics. The image above is obviously a game of pong in progress. It’s interesting to watch but for us the fun is trying to decide how it’s done. Click through the break to see the [...]

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• X-Band linear rail SAR imaging
  [Greg Charvat] really wanted high resolution X-Band linear rail SAR imaging system. He wanted it bad enough to scrounge through parts at HAM radio swap meets until he had the bits to build one himself. The unit is used to take high resolution radar imaging. For example, the image above is constructed of push pins [...]
• Student Soaker, wireless water gun
  As far as pranks go, [Austin Shaf's] wireless hidden water gun is a real treat. The video above goes over a brief explanation and shows the setup in action. The prankster holds onto a wireless AVR remote, and when the unsuspecting victim walks by, he activates a second AVR controlling a pump; spraying water everywhere. [...]

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• Adjustable Tesla coil build
  This coil has no trouble shooting sparks across four meters of empty air. [Finn Hammer] has been putting in some long hours on this labor of love, and we put in some time reading through his progress thread. He started down this path about a year ago and every step of the way he produces [...]
• Most useless machine loses carbon footprint
  [Clayton Boyer] took the electricity out of the useless machine, making one that runs like a clock. To this point, we’ve always seen these useless machine use electric motors. [Clayton's] cleaver design uses a wind-up spring and a series of wooden gears to bring the fun, making it a great companion for the binary adder [...]

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• (Real) Stargate built in backyard
  PVC, wood, and some creativity bring this Stargate duplicate to life. [Mango] and his father started with AutoCad drawings taped together, and ended with the Stargate you see before you. Sure it’s not 22 foot in diameter and not made of Naquadah, but its inner ring rotates and dials like the real thing and it [...]
• Great ball contraption
  The idea of the Great Ball Contraption is to take modules from many builders and combine them into one large machine. The modules need to find some way of moving LEGO soccer balls and basketballs from an input point to an exit are that passes them onto the next module. Some of them sort the balls, but [...]

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• Update: Flash_Destroyer final destroys EEPROM
  The Flash_Destroyer finally succeeded in rewriting that EEPROM until its demise. When we originally looked at the device it had already recorded 2.5 million successful rewrites. The first appearance of corrupt data occurred at 11,494,069 but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The chip kept working for another 200,000 rewrites before finally showing repeated data [...]
• Monster Chess
  Over 100,000 Lego pieces, 4 people a year to create, and a 12 foot by 12 foot chess board make this the largest most awesome Lego hack we’ve ever seen. Take that Lego Printer. For a mere $30,000 you too can have such a setup. Not a lot of information is out yet, but we [...]