Open Hardware/Modding: Purism, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 20, 2025

• Purism ☛ PureOS Crimson Development Report: April 2025

  Thanks for tuning in! Like in March, we have a number of updates for April. We've been working up the stack to finalize the remaining packages that make up the PureOS Crimson release.

  While that is ongoing, we've also made more fixes and reliability improvements to the GNU/Linux kernel used in the Librem 5. These changes benefit both PureOS Crimson and existing installations on PureOS Byzantium.

• Arduino ☛ CamRo is a robot that captures awesome product videos at the touch of a button

  Presentation is always important — even in the maker community. Nice photos and videos get people in the door and technical achievements keep them around. But recording nice videos can be difficult, which is why Cameron Coward developed this robot, called CamRo, to do the work for him.

• Arduino ☛ This CanSat doubles as a drone to slow descents

  A CanSat is a small sensor payload, about the size of a soda can, designed to be launched on a model rocket to relatively low altitudes of around 1km. But while that isn’t anywhere close to leaving the atmosphere, it is very high and CanSats need a way to get back to the ground safely.

• Hackaday ☛ A UV Meter For The Flipper Zero

  We all know UV radiation for its contributions to getting sunburned after a long day outside, but were you aware there are several types different types of UV rays at play? [Michael] has come up with a Flipper Zero add on board and app to measure these three types of radiation, and explained some of the nuances he learned about measuring UV along the way.

• Raspberry Pi ☛ Extreme Raspberry Pi: projects taking Raspberry Pi to its very limits

  Raspberry Pi is a very powerful, very small, very customisable device, and we have seen it be used for so many things over the years because of this. Whether folks are slipping them into 3D-printed classic console cases or simply hiding them away as home file servers, we’ve covered many of the cool things the community has done with Raspberry Pi.

• Wired ☛ We Made Luigi Mangione’s 3D-Printed Gun—and Fired It

  In the meantime, PSR sat with me as I built the rest of the gun. In contrast to the black mask and goggles that gave him the menacing look of a comic book villain, PSR was remarkably polite and forgiving as I clumsily attempted to follow his instructions. In total, a process that takes an experienced gunmaker around 20 minutes took me over an hour as I drilled out bits of stray plastic, hammered metal pins into the holes left behind, and fiddled with tiny interlocking metal and polymer pieces.

  As a firearm took shape in front of us, I commented to PSR how strange it was that it’s only the frame of a Glock-style gun that’s regulated under American gun control laws and not the slide and the barrel sitting on the table in front of us—the very gun-like components that actually hold the round and contain the explosive forces that propel a bullet.

• CNX Software ☛ Boardcon LGA3576 – A Rockchip RK3576 LGA system-on-module with UFS storage and LPDDR5 memory

  Boardcon has just introduced the LGA3576 system-on-module with a 330-pad LGA design powered by Rockchip RK3576 Hey Hi (AI) SoC and the Idea3576 single board computer (SBC) based on the module. The 6TOPS AI-capable system-on-module ships with up to 8GB LPDDR5, integrates 32GB to 512GB UFS storage, while an RK806S-5 PMIC takes care of power management, and all I/Os such as HDMI, PCIe, Ethernet, and GPIO signals are exposed through LGA pads.

• Hackaday ☛ 3D Printing Uranium-Carbide Structures For Nuclear Applications

  Within the nuclear sciences, including fuel production and nuclear medicine (radiopharmaceuticals), often specific isotopes have to be produced as efficiently as possible, or allow for the formation of (gaseous) fission products and improved cooling without compromising the fuel. Here having the target material possess an optimized 3D shape to increase surface area and safely expel gases during nuclear fission can be hugely beneficial, but producing these shapes in an efficient way is complicated. Here using photopolymer-based stereolithography (SLA) as  recently demonstrated by [Alice Zanini] et al. with a research article in Advanced Functional Materials provides an interesting new method to accomplish these goals.

• CNX Software ☛ 1GHz Renesas RZ/A3M Cortex-A55 MPU embeds 128MB on-chip DDR3L for HMI applications

  Renesas RZ/A3M is an Arm Cortex-A55 microprocessor (MPU) clocked at up to 1.0 GHz with 128MB on-chip DDR3L for cost-effective, yet advanced HMI applications with up to 1280×800 resolution.

• CNX Software ☛ Waveshare RA4M1-Zero mini development board features secure boot, firmware encryption, and castellated design

  Waveshare RA4M1-Zero is a mini development board built around the Renesas RA4M1 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 MCU running at 48MHz. The MCU also features 256KB of flash memory, 32KB of SRAM, 8KB of EEPROM, and a built-in Floating Point Unit (FPU). Hardware peripherals include a 14-bit ADC, a 12-bit DAC, a CAN bus controller, an onboard USB 2.0 interface, and WS2812 RGB LED. The MCU also supports firmware encryption, secure boot, and tamper-proof security features to ensure application safety.

• Raspberry Pi Weekly Issue #500 - Celebrating 500 issues of Raspberry Pi Weekly

  A befittingly mixed bag of content for a 500th birthday party. Enjoy! Howdy, Raspberry Pi Weekly is 500 years old! Wait... that's not how it works. We are 500 issues old. That's it. Still cool. How long have you been signed up for? I started writing them about 200 issues ago; it's what keeps me young. Ben and Ryan, if you're still reading, thank you for starting this good thing. Over the last couple of weeks, Raspberry Pi Connect came out of beta, and it's better than ever.

• It's FOSS ☛ Those Blinking LEDs on Your Raspberry Pi Have Special Meanings

  Raspberry Pi’s status LEDs are a surprisingly powerful diagnostic tool, especially for headless setups.

• The DIY Life ☛ Custom CNC Waterblock for Raspberry Pi 5 – Complete Overkill (But It Works!)

  Today’s project is a little ridiculous, but in the best way possible. I’ve built a custom waterblock for the Raspberry Pi 5, and I’ve gone all out.