world building

The first part of a series on programming in Jai, Jonathan Blow's in-development language. It covers compiling, writing hello world and using code from other files.

Ben Eater starts a series building a working computer on breadboards around the 6502 microprocessor. In this first part he gets a 'hello world' running from scratch.

Ben Eater explains how VGA signals work and builds a breadboard circuit that produces correct sync timing so a monitor recognizes the signal. He then builds toward displaying an image from simple logic chips.

Dean Friedman's near-hour-long introduction to synthesis, covering the building blocks of sound and the controls on a synthesizer. He slowly adjusts knobs so viewers hear what each parameter does.

The first part of Robert Baruch's series on building a 6800 CPU on an FPGA with nMigen, a Python-based hardware description language. It introduces the HDL while implementing a simpler 6800 core.

A roughly 90-minute film of John Dobson building a Dobsonian telescope step by step, including hand-grinding the mirror.

Ben Eater finishes building a minimal VGA video card from logic circuits. He explains analog RGB signals, stores an image in an EEPROM and builds a simple digital-to-analog converter to display it.

Tech Ingredients builds a pair of large Voigt speakers and explains ported, transmission line and horn designs. It tests them in an anechoic chamber and uses constrained layer damping for the enclosure.

The first episode of Google's Machine Learning Recipes series. It introduces machine learning and builds a first supervised-learning classifier in about six lines of Python using scikit-learn.

Tech Ingredients shows how to build flat panel speakers from exciters and foam board, with construction guidelines, measured SPL comparisons and a complete system playing music.

Essential Craftsman announces the start of a spec house build on a scenic lot, kicking off a long series. The channel covers every step of building a house from the viewpoint of a general contractor.

Andrej Karpathy builds a bigram character-level language model from scratch, introducing torch.Tensor and the framework of training, sampling and loss evaluation. It is the first step toward a GPT-style Transformer in his makemore series.

Tech Ingredients shows how to build cheap, high-performance flat-panel speakers using audio exciters on sheet materials such as foam-core board. It explains how distributed-mode speakers work and walks through experiments to find good designs.

Chef Chris Young shows a simplified triple-cooked method for making crisp frozen fries in an air fryer, based on Heston Blumenthal's technique.

The first episode of a screencast series building djb's redo build system from scratch in Haskell. It explains the purpose of redo, writes initial code and sets up a GitHub repository.

Matt Risinger demonstrates a blower door test on a house, using a fan to measure air leakage and find where air gets in and out. It shows how the test reveals the quality of the build.

Matt Risinger covers installing a Zehnder ERV fresh-air system in a tight passive house, explaining balanced ventilation, the benefits of heat recovery and the costs involved.

Inigo Quilez live-codes a cartoon character painting entirely from math, using signed distance fields in a Shadertoy shader. He explains each step of building the image from formulas.

Inigo Quilez live-paints a mountain landscape using only math in a shader, building up from a basic polynomial noise surface through fractal terrain, lighting and atmosphere. The code runs in real time on Shadertoy so viewers can edit it as they follow along.

Allieway Audio gives an informal introduction and live-coding demo of ORCA, a free esoteric programming environment for building procedural sequencers from Hundred Rabbits. It walks through the interface and how to make music with it.

A short screencast tour of JSPM, SystemJS and ES6 features, building a small app with the then-new JavaScript module and package tooling. It shows how JSPM works as a package manager, bundler and loader.

A University of Michigan Medicine demonstration of building a cheap DIY air purifier from a box fan and a HEPA or high-MERV filter using hardware-store parts. It explains why this helps against dust, smoke and viruses and ties it to local air quality readings.

The first episode of Clickspring's series building a John Wilding skeleton clock from raw stock in a home machine shop. It covers making the frames along with the tools needed for the job.

The first stream in the Emacs From Scratch series, building a custom Emacs configuration from zero while teaching basics. It covers a usable baseline setup and the packages for completion, themes and productivity.

The first of a short series by Welch Labs on building a complete neural network in Python. It introduces the data and the architecture of a simple network before later parts cover forward propagation, gradient descent, and backpropagation.

ElectroBOOM's Mehdi Sadaghdar explains how a full bridge rectifier works, the building block of AC to DC converters, with his usual humor and a demonstration of the circuit.

Inigo Quilez live-codes a painting using only mathematics in a shader, building it up step by step. The linked Shadertoy source shows the result.

Ben Eater shows how to build logic gates out of transistors, including NOR gates. It is part of his clear hardware-from-scratch teaching style.

A guided Wim Hof breathing session of three rounds at a slow pace, building from a 30 second to a 90 second breath hold. An on-screen bubble animation helps you keep the rhythm.

The trailer for Tim Hunkin's series The Secret Life of Components, eight guides to mechanical and electromechanical parts for designers and makers.

Acerola explores building a shader that turns games into ASCII art, walking through techniques such as brightness mapping and edge detection to see whether it looks good.

A step-by-step guide to building a lifter, a small triangular ionocraft made from balsa wood, aluminum foil and thin wire, powered by a high-voltage supply. It also shows high-voltage safety practices.