How inclusive are advanced prosthetics technologies?

The global demand for prosthetics and orthotics is only expected to rise. Yet, access to affordable and innovative solutions varies greatly at local, national and international levels. And while 3D printing has greatly contributed to making prosthetics available in low-income and developing regions, the benefits that robotics and technological innovation bring users remain highly exclusive.   

This may be about to change. In an attempt to make high-tech prosthetics solutions more accessible, Professor in Biomechatronics at the University of Agder in Norway, Filippo Sanfilippo, along with his colleagues (Martin Økter, Jørgen Dale, Hua Minh Tuan, Muhammad Hamza Zafar, Morten Ottestad) have published an open-source, low-cost sensorised elastic actuator design that promises to shift innovation from the market to the commons.

This episode is researched, produced and edited by Miriam Gradel, Journalist and Media Editor at HardwareX. The music is provided by Kammerin Hunt and ComaStudio via Pixabay. 

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

What does it take to make research catch up with climate change?

The Arctic regions hold crucial information about the environmental impact of rising temperatures. Calving glaciers and treacherous territories make it a life-threatening mission to collect it though.

As autonomous technologies improve, drones, boats and rovers are increasingly being deployed in place of humans to sample, monitor and manage marine and aquatic systems. However, as costs can range in the millions, the value these technologies can provide researchers is relevant to their cost. That is why Daniel F. Carlson and Claus Melvad put it to a group of engineering students at Aarhus University in Denmark to design a low-cost, lightweight and replicable drone for accompanying them on missions to Greenland. In this episode, we take a look at the Naval Operating Research Drone Assessing Climate Change (NORDACC) and discuss how open-source principles coupled with citizen science could accelerate climate change research - and results.

This episode is researched, produced and edited by Miriam Gradel, Journalist and Media Editor at HardwareX. The music is provided by Kammerin Hunt and ComaStudio via Pixabay. 

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

Why did high-tech farming go bust?

Vertical Farming was one of the big new technologies of the early 2010s. By growing crops vertically with less water and no pesticides, big vertical farms promised to revolutionise food production. So why are the same vertical farms going bust across Europe and the US just ten years after they boomed?

In this episode, we journey to Cambridge University in England to meet Vijja "Pat" Wichitwechkarn. An AI researcher working on agricultural robotics, he has developed a fully automated and scalable indoor farming system - MACARONS - published on HardwareX. In this episode, we address why vertical farming keeps missing the goal, and how open-source technologies could propel it to become the food tech solution we all hoped for.

This episode is researched, produced and edited by Miriam Gradel, Journalist and Media Editor at HardwareX. The music is provided by Kammerin Hunt and ComaStudio via Pixabay. 

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

Welcome to a new HardwareX podcast series: Open Hardware Talks.

In addition to our regular episodes exploring open-source hardware projects, we're launching a new deep-dive series. Open Hardware Talks explores key concepts of open-source hardware in casual conversations with experts and practitioners from across the ecosystem.

For the first episode in this new series, we ask: How do you validate the openness of a given hardware? To explore this, we're joined by Sid Drmay and Lee Wilkins from the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) which maintains the open-source hardware certification recognised by practitioners globally, including us here at HardwareX. As a bonus, Martin Häuer from Open Source Ecology Germany (OSEG) joins to present the DIN SPEC-3105; the world's first open-source standard.

Don't forget! OSHWA is also behind the annual Open Hardware Summit, the world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware. A hybrid event, most talks and discussions are also available online.

2024 Open Hardware Summit
May 3rd-4th
Montreal, Canada

For more info on how to join, check out the links below.

• Attend the Summit: https://2024.oshwa.org/attend-the-summit/
• Open Hardware Summit YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/user/opensourcehardware
• OSHWA Discord: https://discord.com/invite/bMK7NqFWG9

This episode is researched, produced and edited by Miriam Gradel, Journalist and Media Editor at HardwareX. The music is provided by Kammerin Hunt via Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

How can we make life-saving medical equipment more accessible in areas under blockade, with low infrastructure, or with limited resources?

In a time where almost every region in the world is seeing a rise in conflict, tourniquets have become increasingly necessary for avoiding excessive civilian casualties. Yet, proprietary tourniquets remain largely geared toward male military personnel, not women and children. Even if this changes, proprietary tourniquets remain expensive and largely inaccessible in regions where they are needed most.

In this episode, Dr Tarek Loubani of Glia and Victoria Jaqua of Open Source Medical Supplies (OSMS) take us from Gaza to Ukraine as we explore the development, testing and scaling of the open-source tourniquet and the open-source tourniquet tester published on HardwareX.

This episode is researched, produced and edited by Miriam Gradel, Journalist and Media Editor at HardwareX. The music is provided by Kammerin Hunt and ComaStudio via Pixabay. 

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode, we talk to the creators of Studio HILO that offers open source technologies for local yarn production, along with remote workshops and vocational training to facilitate user-driven experimentation. Our three guests are Sara Diaz Rodriguez (co-founder of Studio HILO, textile design and technologies consultant), Natalija Krasnoperova (co-founder of Studio HILO, innovation and coaching consultant), and Lukas Schattenhofer (member of Open Source Ecology in Germany managing the certification program for open source hardware).

The host and content creator is Dr. Sanli Faez who is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Utrecht University. The post-editing and production was handled by Dr. Santosh Pandey who is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University. The theme music is provided by Oleksandr Savochka from Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this fourth episode of HardwareX Season 2 podcasts, our guest is Chet Udell who is an Assistant Professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University (USA). Dr. Udell is the Director of the Openly Published Environmental Sensing (OPEnS) lab at his university. His lab is an NSF and USDA funded Makerspace led by a staff of over 30 undergraduate researchers across Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Biological and Ecological Engineering, and Humanitarian Engineering. Dr. Udell is also the co-founder and CEO of Stratos Instruments, LLC and an Associate Editor of the journal HardwareX. For this episode, the host and content creator is Dr. Sanli Faez who is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Utrecht University. The post-editing and production was handled by Dr. Santosh Pandey who is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University. The theme music is provided by Oleksandr Savochka from Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this third episode of HardwareX Season 2 podcasts, our guest is Katrina Laganovska from the Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia, Riga LV-1063, Latvia . She is the first author of an HardwareX article titled “Portable low-cost open-source wireless spectrophotometer for fast and reliable measurements” along with co-authors Aleksejs Zolotarjovs, Mercedes Vázquez, Kirsty Mc Donnell, Janis Liepins, Hadar Ben-Yoav, Varis Karitans, and Krisjanis Smits from Latvia, Ireland, and Israel.
For this episode, the host and content creator is Dr. Sanli Faez who is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Utrecht University. The post-editing and production was handled by Dr. Santosh Pandey who is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University. The theme music is provided by Oleksandr Savochka from Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this second episode of HardwareX Season 2 podcasts, our guest is Diego Lagos-Susaeta who is affiliated with the Centre for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (CeBiB), Department of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Materials, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. Our guest is the first author of an HardwareX article titled “openPFGE: An open source and low cost pulsed-field gel electrophoresis equipment” along with co-authors  Oriana Salazar and Juan A. Asenjo from the same university. For this episode, the host and content creator is Dr. Sanli Faez who is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Utrecht University. The post-editing and production was handled by Dr. Santosh Pandey who is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at Iowa State University. The theme music is provided by Oleksandr Savochka from Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this first episode of HardwareX Season 2 podcasts, our new host is Dr. Sanli Faez who is the Assistant Professor (tenured) of Physics at Utrecht University. Our guests are Dr. Joshua Pearce and Dr. Todd Duncombe who are the Editors-in-Chief of HardwareX and have edited the Special Issue: COVID-19 Medical Hardware. We also invite Dr. Santosh Pandey who is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering (Iowa State University) and was the host/producer of the HardwareX Season 1 podcast episodes. Dr. Joshua Pearce is the author of the Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs, Create, Share, and Save Money Using Open-Source Projects, and To Catch the Sun, an open source book of inspiring stories of communities coming together to harness their own solar energy, and how you can do it too!  For this episode, the content creation and interviewing was done by Dr. Sanli Faez, while the post-editing and production was handled by Dr. Santosh Pandey. The music is provided by Oleksandr Savochka (Alex_MakeMusic) from Pixabay.

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Dr. Matheus Carvalho who is a Senior Research Associate at the Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. He is affiliated with the Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry Research, Environmental Analysis Laboratory, and Southern Cross Analytical Research Services. His research interests have been to improve the understanding of photosynthesis and respiration by algae. In particular, he has developed, together with his colleagues Kai Schulz and Bradley Eyre, an approach to obtain new and old respiration estimates for the entire ocean. He also has a keen interest in laboratory automation. In collaboration with his colleague, Rachel Murray, he created an affordable open-source microsyringe autosampler for liquid and gas sampling. Dr. Carvalho serves on the editorial board of HardwareX. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by Twisterium from Pixabay (Title: Cheerful).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Dr. Joong Ho Shin and Won Han. Dr. Shin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pukyong National University, South Korea. Dr. Shin is an expert in microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip, biosensors, diagnostic devices, biotechnology and molecular biology. His work has been published in very reputable journals in these fields. In April 2021, his team published a paper in HardwareX titled “Low-cost, open-source 3D printed antibody dispenser for development and small-scale production of lateral flow assay strips”. The authors are Won Han and Joong Ho Shin. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by JuliusH from Pixabay (Title: Sunrise - Ambient Grand Piano and Pad Music).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Pete Marchetto who is a Research Engineer and Instrumentation Scientist with Conservify, and Principal at Sensing, LLC. His research interests lie in environmental sensing, and creating tools for those in the life sciences who need them. Some of his projects have included applying automated imaging and high-throughput measurement techniques for plant phenotyping, assessing plant stress, and remote health monitoring of poultry, livestock, and farm animals. Dr. Marchetto has published a number of interesting papers in HardwareX which are available freely through Open Access. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by jorikbasov from Pixabay (Title: Relaxing Corporate Ambient).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Andrew Hill and Peter Prince from Open Acoustic Devices, which is a UK-based company that designs, supports and deploys open-source acoustic hardware and software for our user community, as well as our own environmental and wildlife monitoring projects. In October 2019, their team published a paper in HardwareX titled “AudioMoth: A low-cost acoustic device for monitoring biodiversity and the environment”. The paper is part of the Special Issue on Open-Hardware for Environmental Sensing and Instruments edited by Chet Udell and Shannon Hicks. Their product, AudioMoth is a low-cost, full-spectrum acoustic logger that can listen at audible frequencies, well into ultrasonic frequencies. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by JuliusH from Pixabay (Title: Spirit Of Autumn - Ambient Chill Out Music for Fall).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, our guests are Dr. Marcel Bentancor and Dr. Horacio Failache from Montevideo, Uruguay. Their research interests are in Optics and Experimental Physics. In February 2021, their team published a paper in HardwareX titled “LUCIA: An open source device for disinfection of N95 masks using UV-C radiation”. The paper is part of the Special Issue: COVID-19 Medical Hardware edited by Todd Duncombe and Joshua Pearce. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by jorikbasov from Pixabay (Title: Ambient Atmospheric).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Sarah Jenkins who is the Publishing Director at Elsevier. She is currently located at Oxford, UK. Sarah has served Elsevier in various capacities over the past 19 and a half years, and has led many successful projects at Elsevier. It is an absolute pleasure to chat with Sarah on her initiatives and vision for HardwareX and open access journals from Elsevier. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by Lesfm from Pixabay (Title: Inspiring Cinematic Background Music For Videos).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcasts, we talk to Todd Duncombe who is the co-Editor-in-Chief of HardwareX. Todd is a Postdoctoral researcher at the renowned ETH Zurich, Department of BioSystems Science and Engineering in Basel, Switzerland. He has published several impactful papers and inventions on Droplet Microfluidic, Analytical Chemistry, Mass Spectrometry, MEMS, and Electrokinetic Transport. He developed assays to streamline biomanufacturing pathways and combinatorial screening, often improvising the techniques in mass spectrometry and electrophoresis. Todd also has been an active member of Tekla Labs. This episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by Lesfm from Pixabay (Title: Uplifting Corporate and Inspiring (IG version 60s)).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.

In this episode of HardwareX podcast, we talk to Professor Joshua Pearce who is the co-Editor-in-Chief of HardwareX. Dr. Pearce is the Thompson Chair in Information Technology and Innovation, cross-appointed in the Richard Ivey School of Business and Western University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Pearce is a renowned expert on open hardware, low cost 3D printing, and solar photovoltaics. We talk to him about his driving motivation, projects, and vision about the future of open source hardware. This podcast episode was recorded, edited, and produced by Santosh Pandey from Iowa State University. The music is provided by Asepirawan20 from Pixabay (Upbeat Pop Day).

HardwareX is a peer-reviewed scientific journal about open-source hardware. For more info, visit HardwareX.