Some like it flat, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What you are looking at is the first prototype of Atlas by [AsicResistor], which is still a work in progress. [AsicResistor] found the Totem to be a bit cramped, so naturally, it was time to design a keyboard from the ground up.

The case is wood, if that’s not immediately obvious. This fact is easily detectable in the lovely render, but I didn’t want to show you that here.

This travel-friendly keyboard has 34 keys and dual trackpoints, one on each half. If the nubbin isn’t your thing, there’s an optional, oversized trackball, which I would totally opt for. But I would need an 8-ball instead, simply because that’s my number.

A build video is coming at some point, so watch the GitHub, I suppose, or haunt r/ergomechkeyboards.

Flat as it may be, I would totally at least give this keyboard a fair chance. There’s just something about those keycaps, for starters. (Isn’t it always the keycaps with me?) For another, I dig the pinky stagger. I’m not sure that two on each side is nearly enough thumb keys for me, however.

The Foot Roller Scroller Is Not a Crock

Sitting at a keyboard all day isn’t great for anyone, but adding in some leg and/or foot movement throughout the day is a good step in the right direction. Don’t want to just ride a bike all day under your desk? Add something useful like foot pedals.

The Kinesis Savant pedals are a set of three foot switches that are great for macros, or just pressing Shift all the time. Trust me. But [a__b] wasn’t satisfied with mere clicking, and converted their old pedals into a Bluetooth 5.0 keyboard with a big, fat scroll wheel.

Brain-wise, it has a wireless macro keyboard and an encoder from Ali, but [a__b] plans to upgrade it to a nice!nano in order to integrate it with a Glove80.

Although shown with a NautiCroc, [a__b] says the wheel works well with socks on, or bare feet. (Take it from me, the footfeel of pedals is much more accurate with no shoes on.) Interestingly, much of the inspiration was taken from sewing machines.

As of this writing, [a__b] has mapped all keys using BetterTouchTool for app-specific action, and is out there happily scrolling through pages, controlling the volume, and navigating YouTube videos. Links to CAD and STLs are coming soon.

The Centerfold: LEGO My Ergo

This here is a Silakka 54 split keyboard with a custom LEGO case available on Thingiverse. [Flat-Razzmatazz-672] says that it isn’t perfect (could have fooled me!), but it did take a hell of a lot of work to get everything to fit right.

As you might imagine and [Flat-Razzmatazz-672] can attest, 3D printing LEGO is weird. These studs are evidently >= 5% bigger than standard studs, because if you print it as is, the LEGO won’t fit right.

Via reddit

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the North’s was a Striking Down-striker

Although lovely to gaze upon, the North’s typewriter was a doomed attempt at creating a visible typewriter. That is, one where a person could actually see what they were typing as they typed it.

North’s achieved this feat through the use of vertical typebars arranged in a semi-circle that would strike down onto the platen from behind, making it a rear down-striker.

In order for this arrangement to work, the paper had to be loaded, coiled into one basket, and it was fed into another, hidden basket while typing. This actually allowed the typist to view two lines at a time, although the unfortunate ribbon placement obstructed the immediate character.

The story of North’s typewriter is a fairly interesting one. For starters, it was named after Colonel John Thomas North, who wasn’t really a colonel at all. In fact, North had very little to do with the typewriter beyond bankrolling it and providing a name.

North started the company by purchasing the failed English Typewriter Company, which brought along with it a couple of inventors, who would bring the North’s to fruition. The machine was made from 1892 to 1905. In 1896, North died suddenly while eating raw oysters, though the cause of death was likely heart failure. As he was a wealthy, unpopular capitalist, conspiracy theories abounded surrounding his departure.

Finally, MoErgo Released a New Travel Keyboard, the Go60

It’s true, the MoErgo Glove80 is great for travel. And admittedly, it’s kind of big, both in and out of its (very nice) custom zipper case. But you asked, and MoErgo listened. And soon enough, there will be a new option for even sleeker travel, the Go60. Check out the full spec sheet.

You may have noticed that it’s much flatter than the Glove80, which mimics the key wells of a Kinesis Advantage quite nicely.

Don’t worry, there are removable palm rests that are a lot like the Glove80 rests. And it doesn’t have to be flat –there is 6-step magnetic tenting (6.2° – 17°), which snaps on or off in seconds. The palm rests have 7-step tenting (6°-21.5°), and they come right off, too.

Let’s talk about those trackpads. They are Cirque 40 mm Glidepoints. They aren’t multi-touch, but they are fully integrated into ZMK and thus are fully programmable, so do what you will.

Are you as concerned about battery life as I am? It’s okay — the Go60 goes fully wired with a TRRS cable between the halves, and a USB connection from the left half to the host. Although ZMK did not support this feature, MoErgo sponsored the founder, [Pete], to develop it, and now it’s just a feature of ZMK. You’re welcome.

Interested? The Go60 will be on Kickstarter first, and then it’ll be available on the MoErgo site. Pricing hasn’t quite been worked out yet, so stay tuned on that front.

Via reddit

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

How do you top a highly detailed scale model of NASA’s new moon-bound rocket and its support tower? If you’re Lego, you make it so it can actually lift off.

Lego’s NASA Artemis Space Launch System Rocket, part of its Technic line of advanced building sets, will land on store shelves for $60 on January 1, 2026, and then “blast off” from kitchen tables, office desks and living room floors. The 632-piece set climbs skyward, separating from its expendable stages along the way, until the Orion crew spacecraft and its European Service Module top out the motion on their way to the moon—or wherever your imagination carries it.

“The educational LEGO Technic set shows the moment a rocket launches, in three distinct stages,” reads the product description on Lego’s website. “Turn the crank to see the solid rocket boosters separate from the core stage, which then also detaches. Continue turning to watch the upper stage with its engine module, Orion spacecraft and launch abort system separate.”

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© LEGO/collectSPACE.com

The Creel House will release on January 1, 2026, just in time for the conclusion of 'Stranger Things' season five.

Lego's 'Enterprise'-D set is great for 'Trek' fans—but it'd be even better if it heralded a whole line of 'Star Trek' models.

You know what’s not fun? Sorting LEGO. You know what is fun? Making a machine to sort LEGO! That’s what [LegoSpencer] did, and you can watch the machine do its thing in the video below.

[Spencer] runs us through the process: first, quit your day job so you can get a job playing with LEGO; then research what previous work has been done in this area (plenty, it turns out); and then commit to making your own version both reproducible and extensible.

A sorting machine needs three main features: a feeder to dispense one piece at a time, a classifier to decide the type of piece, and a distributor to route the piece to a bin. Of course, the devil is in the details.

If you want to build your own, you might want to track the new Sorter V2 that is under development. If you are building V1, you can find what you need on GitHub.

Once you’ve got your LEGO sorted, you’re free to take on other projects such as Building A Drivable, Life-Size 3D-Printed LEGO Technic Buggy, Making Steam-Powered LEGO Machines, and Building The DVD Logo Screensaver With LEGO.

It’s part of the great circle of life that toys and scale models that provide a reflection of macro-sized objects like vehicles and buildings will eventually be scaled up again to life-sized proportions. Case in point the LEGO Technic dune buggy that [Matt Denton] recently printed at effectively human scale, while also making it actually drivable.

The basis for this project is the 8845 Dune Buggy which was released in 1981. Unlike the modern 42101 version, it’s more straightforward and also seems more amenable to actually sitting in despite featuring more pieces for a total of 174 pieces.  Naturally, [Matt] didn’t simply go for a naïve build of the 8845 buggy, but made a few changes. First is the scale that’s 10.42 times larger than the LEGO original, based around the use of 50 mm bearings. The model was also modified to be a single-seater, with the steering wheel placed in the center.

With some structural and ergonomic tweaks in place, the resulting CAD model was printed out mostly in PLA with a 1 mm nozzle and 10% infill using a belt FDM printer to help with the sheer size of the parts. After that it was mostly a LEGO kit assembly on a ludicrous scale that resembles a cross between building a LEGO kit and assembling Ikea flatpack furniture.

At merely the cost of most of his sanity, [Matt] finally got the whole kit together, still leaving a few suspension issues to resolve, as it turns out that so much plastic actually weighs a lot, at 102 kg. With that and other issues resolved, the final touch was to add an electric motor to the whole kit using a belt-driven system on the rear axle and bringing every LEGO minifig’s dreams to life.

After a few test drives, some issues did pop up, including durability concerns and not a lot of performance, but overall it performs much better than you’d expect from a kid’s toy.

I’m honored to be the first Grand Champion Pitmaster in Lego form, a unique addition to the world’s 400 billion Lego pieces. You can find ... Read More