Open Hardware/Modding: Arduino, PocketBeagle 2 TechLab, and More

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 12, 2026

• Arduino ☛ Building smarter AMRs with the Arduino® VENTUNO™ Q board

  Physical Hey Hi (AI) is based on the idea that intelligence shouldn’t stop at perception: instead, it should bring to life systems able to sense their environment, reason about it, and act on it – all in one continuous loop. It’s what makes the difference between a device that observes and one that acts.

• Linux.org ☛ PocketBeagle 2 TechLab - Part 1

  The TechLab is a Cape used to help learn to program for the PocketBeagle 1 and 2. There are quite a few components built-in to the TechLab, so this is an inexpensive way to learn some programming.

  The images you can download for the PocketBeagle 2 include one that is listed as 'Workshop'. You need the image when hooking up to the TechLab since it has the drivers in the kernel for the TechLab Cape.

• Hackaday ☛ Trying To Fix A Suspiciously Cheap Enterprise-Grade Network Switch

  Naturally this Juniper EX4100-F-12P switch came without power supply brick for its 48VDC input. Figuring out its pin-out and probing said input showed that the voltage rails had been shorted, giving a first clue as to why this switch had been on sale for so very cheap. Bravely hoping that it would be a straightforward fix, the unit was disassembled.

• Framework Computer BV ☛ One Key Module Developer Program Recap

  Last year, we announced the One Key Module to enable development of custom ultra-low-profile keyboards and Input Modules for Framework Laptop 16. After around three years of design and prototyping along with an extensive Developer Program that we launched earlier this year, we’ve come to the conclusion that unfortunately we won’t be able to turn this into a sellable product. As a general rule, we avoid announcing products before we have full confidence we can ship them. We made an exception in this case to bring in developer feedback during the design process to ensure we were heading in the right direction. What we learned from both our efforts with our supplier and from feedback from developers was extremely valuable and led to our conclusion to halt the product.

• Hackaday ☛ This Machine Makes 35mm (Almost) Film

  The revival in film photography has brought a range of specialist films to tempt the experimenter, as well as increased the popularity of loading your own cartridges. But perforating the film from blank stock has always been beyond the reach of home gamers. Now [Jon Schiereck] has done it, but not quite with film. He’s made a perforator for photographic paper, producing a strip which can be shot in a camera. It’s film, but it’s not exactly film.

• Boiling Steam ☛ Orange Pi Zero 3W Review: Tiny Yet Powerful

  Orange Pi has kindly sent us a new board to test, the Orange Pi Zero 3W. Our last review with Orange Pi hardware was the Orange Pi 4 Pro SBC - a powerful, low wattage board, low-cost alternative to the Raspberry Pi 5 (while a little less powerful). This time the Zero 3W sits in a very different category. It’s absolutely tiny, and it’s hard to believe that this thing actually has pretty much the same hardware specs as the larger Orange Pi 4 Pro!