science

Hackaday

Hackaday is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hackaday rather than just read about it. In short: Hackaday is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine.

Key takeaways

Hackaday belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hackaday to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hackaday from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hackaday is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs.

History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web magazine for Engadget, devoted to publishing and archiving "the best hacks, mods and DIY projects from around web". Hackaday was since split from Engadget and its former parent company Weblogs, Inc. by its at the time owner Jason Calacanis. In 2007 Computerworld magazine ranked Hackaday #10 on their list of the top 15 geek blog sites. Hackaday.io started as a project hosting site in 2014 under the name of Hackaday Projects. It allows users to upload open-source hardware designs. As of 2015, it had grown into a social network of 100,000 members. In 2015, Hackaday's owner, Supplyframe, acquired the hardware marketplace Tindie. In 2021, Hackaday's owner, Supplyframe, was acquired by Siemens.

See also Instructables Thingiverse TorrentFreak

References

External links Official website Hackaday.io, Hackaday's online community

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hackaday

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hackaday claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hackaday before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hackaday ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hackaday

In research: Hackaday appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hackaday in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hackaday is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Magazines established in 2004, Magazines published in California, Online magazines published in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hackaday outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Hackaday” →

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How to study Hackaday in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hackaday means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hackaday out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hackaday in simple terms?

Hackaday is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine.

Why does Hackaday matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hackaday?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hackaday.