HardwareX Podcasts

Feb 05 2025 23 ep. 26 mins 19

HardwareX Podcasts artwork

Interviews and deep-dives with the scientists and leading experts in open-source hardware for the journal HardwareX from Elsevier Publishing Company.

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Tagging 6000 Bees: An Open-source System for Species Monitoring

Feb 05 2025 32 mins

Did you know that honey bees dance? When honey bees return to the colony from foraging, they share info about their journey with their fellow honey bees by dancing. Besides getting the boogie on, however, little is known about how far honey bees go foraging and what ecological factors impact their journey, e.g. pesticide exposure. In this episode of HardwareX, Entomologist Margarit

Democratising Air Quality: An Open-source Solution to Filling Data Gaps in the Global South

Jan 15 2025 24 mins

The advancement of low-cost sensors has sparked a boom in air quality monitoring devices. From backpack add-ons to citizen bicycles, air quality devices are enabling citizens to get involved in monitoring local air quality. When looking at global air quality maps, however, the data for South America and Africa remain scarce. As primarily consumer-based products, these devices remai

Building A Better Mousetrap: Scaling animal wellbeing with open-source hardware

Dec 09 2024 23 mins

What if research labs didn't have to reinvent the wheel all the time? Rodents like mice and rats play a pivotal role in neuroscientific research. Through a process known as 'head fixation', scientists surgically implant cannulas and electrodes to measure neurophysiological activity. As mice share roughly 95% of our DNA, head fixation experiments greatly contribute to advancing our

A Co-benefits Approach: Preserving more than one species with open-source hardware

Nov 12 2024 27 mins

Did you know that our understanding of basic functions such as memory, learning and sleep is largely thanks to a giant sea slug? For more than 50 years, Aplysia Californica, a type of slug also known as the California Sea Hare, has been important for understanding how the nervous system works and for investigating the cellular and molecular basis of behaviour. As an essential resou

Microwaves Against Malaria: Life-saving technologies and the question of patenting.

Sep 29 2024 31 mins

Urgent needs require urgent solutions, but is open-source always the answer? The UN aims to eradicate malaria in all countries by 2030. However, in some parts of the world, incidents are increasing as the parasites transmitting the disease grow increasingly tolerant to treatment drugs. A novel treatment method using microwaves to kill the parasite shows promising results. One that

High-tech Prosthetics: Granting locomotion to all with open-source robotics.

Sep 10 2024 28 mins

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

Drones for Data Gathering: How open-source hardware is making environmental research more viable

Jun 06 2024 23 mins

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 sam

The Future of Food: (Re)growing vertical farming with open-source automation

May 28 2024 33 mins

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 Unive

Open Hardware Talks: Validating openness (with OSHWA and Open Source Ecology Germany)

Apr 29 2024 35 mins

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 d

From Gaza to Ukraine: Exploring the Glia open-source tourniquet and scaling decentralised manufacturing during conflict

Mar 18 2024 32 mins

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 per