Open {Hardware} Summit 2025 was not too long ago held in Edinburgh, Scotland and introduced collectively a mixture of proficient engineers, designers, researchers, and artists, with every providing a singular perspective on what open {hardware} can turn out to be. From textile hacking and biomaterials to satellite tv for pc techniques and solar-powered insect traps, the talks lined a variety of disciplines and revolutionary methods, all of which supplied a dedication to openness, accessibility, and experimentation.
All Yarns Are Stunning
(📷: AYAB through EvilMadScientist)
First speaker Carson Holgate (0:27:58) was available to focus on her All Yarns Are Stunning (AYAB) venture that retrofits outdated Brother knitting machines with laptop {hardware}. Her open supply AYAB replaces the unique electronics in these knitting machines with customized {hardware}, which supplies laptop management and pushes their capabilities past the unique design. The venture helps knitting machines from the Nineteen Eighties and 90s, permitting customers to create advanced patterns and designs through a pc interface.
Holgate’s AYAB venture has became a thriving group of digital knitters, and he or she has shared her insights into the venture’s improvement and challenges, together with supporting non-technical customers who could not have knitting expertise.
RepMat Supplies Library
(📷: Alessia Romani through GitHub))
Alessia Romani, the following speaker (0:43:44), is a design researcher and supplies engineer specializing in sustainable digital fabrication and round financial system practices. She is the creator of RepMat (REPlicating MATerials Library), an open supply, OSHWA-certified supplies library designed to democratize entry to sustainable supplies and fabrication information, significantly within the realm of 3D printing.
RepMat acts as each a bodily and digital repository, with the previous performing as tangible samples, together with flat supplies, cut-offs, and 3D-printed objects, all of that are crafted from recycled plastics and biomass waste. The digital library supplies detailed metadata, technical documentation, and fabrication pointers, all structured to assist replication and adaptation by makers, educators, and researchers.
Mothbox 4.5
(📷: Digital Naturalism Laboratories)
Mothbox 4.5, developed by Andy Quitmeyer (0:59:45) and a group from Digital Naturalism Laboratories (Dinalab), was available to focus on its compact, open supply, AI-powered insect monitoring platform designed for distant deployment. The platform identifies bugs autonomously utilizing a Raspberry Pi 5 (or Pi 4 + PiJuice), Arducam 64MP digicam, Talentcell battery, and customized Mothbeam PCBs with UV/seen mild attractors. Housed in a Plano waterproof case with laser-cut acrylic arms, it features a relay board for controlling lights and peripherals.
The Mothbox might be programmed for a set schedule. When that schedule is tripped, the gadget powers on prompts its lights to draw bugs, captures photos, and processes them utilizing YOLOv8 for cropping and a customized model of BioCLIP for classification. The system helps native or cloud information storage. Customers may also benefit from a number of interchangeable visible targets to swimsuit totally different area wants and environments, and might even be powered by photo voltaic panels, full with weatherproof charging ports.
FAIR Battery Undertaking
(📷: Honest Battery Undertaking through YouTube))
Sanli Faez detailed the Constructing a FAIR Battery venture(1:47:06), which stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reproducible, and is designed to democratize power storage by means of clear, regionally adaptable battery designs. The open-hardware move battery platform prioritizes world usability by utilizing low-cost, regionally sourced supplies, supplies full open supply paperwork (schematics, software program, guides), and builds community-inspired academic perception for deployment and upkeep.
The FAIR Battery venture acts as a redox-flow battery, the place power is saved in liquid electrolytes, and energy scales with the dimensions of the cell space, and the quantity of power saved relies on the reservoir quantity. It additionally takes benefit of cost-effective chemistry like zinc–iodide, which supplies dendrite resistance and first rate power density.
Desktop Biofiber Spinning Machine
(📷: The Atlas Institute)
Eldy Lazaro Vasquezhe (2:08:57) from the College of Colorado’s Atlas Institute highlighted her group’s open supply Desktop Biofiber Spinning Machine that is designed to supply bio-based fibers comparable in kind to these utilized in 3D printing. It permits customers to create yarns from sustainable biomaterials, that are dissolvable and permits customers to get well {the electrical} elements and recycle them.
The spinning machine’s design encompasses a 60 mL syringe with heated wrap and nozzles that assist bio-ink extrusion, together with Luer Lock nozzles and ideas, together with Lock-to-M6 3D printer nozzle adapters. It additionally makes use of collector assemblies to use totally different coatings to the fibers, making it a really perfect resolution for wearables and different e-textiles.
Kitchen Desk Bioreactor
(📷: Gerrit Niezen through YouTube))
Gerrit Niezen (2:28:53) highlighted his work with the Sustainable Protein Manufacturing with a Kitchen-Desk Bioreactor, which is designed to supply edible protein utilizing simply electrical energy and carbon dioxide. The venture’s aim is to make protein manufacturing extra accessible, scale back reliance on conventional agriculture, and generate different meals applied sciences that may be replicated at house.
The bioreactor features by cultivating hydrogenotrophic micro organism, which may develop by consuming hydrogen and carbon dioxide and changing them right into a protein-based biomass. Electrical energy is used to electrolyze water, producing hydrogen, which feeds the micro organism, and oxygen, which is a byproduct. CO2 is garnered from the air or a easy supply like yeast fermentation, which helps the micro organism develop. The micro organism develop in a small, managed tank (the bioreactor), and their progress is monitored over time. As soon as mature, the biomass is harvested, dried and able to eat.
Sustaining KiCad’s Libraries
Kliment Yanev (2:47:59) joined the 2025 Summit to speak about his endeavor to keep up KiCAD libraries and what it takes to maintain these libraries accessible. Kliment is a key member of the KiCad library group, which is overseen by lead librarian Carsten Presser. His job entails sustaining official symbols, footprints, and 3D mannequin libraries inside KiCad’s central GitLab repositories.
Yanev additionally evaluations and merges group contributions, sustaining high quality, consistency, and adherence to KiCad Library Conventions (KLC). He advocates scripting and steady integration (CI) enhancements to cut back guide work, resembling mechanically producing merge requests and previews for contributor adjustments. What’s extra, Yanev additionally guides group contributors, serving to them undertake higher workflows and combine instruments to validate library entries earlier than being submitted.
Constructing Efficient Manufacturing unit Take a look at Programs with Open Supply {Hardware}
(📷: Nice Scott Devices)
Visitor speaker Martin Ling (4:24:39) detailed the significance of constructing manufacturing unit check techniques and the way utilizing open supply {hardware}, resembling Nice Scott Devices’ Cynthionall-in-one software, mitigates a few of the challenges. “When manufacturing an digital product, you actually need to develop two merchandise: the gadget you produce and the manufacturing unit check system for it,” states Ling. “The check system can typically be the more durable of the 2, however is often a non-public venture, seemingly put collectively in a rush, and infrequently open sourced, even for open supply merchandise.”
To assist with a few of these challenges, Ling and his group from Nice Scott Devices developed Cynthion, which acts as a tool for USB testing, debugging, and improvement and makes use of FPGA logic to deal with USB protocol evaluation. The gadget’s digital {hardware} might be personalized based mostly on consumer preferences and might act as a USB protocol analyzer, a USB analysis multi-tool, or a USB improvement platform, making it a really perfect check platform.
How TU Delft Is Turning Shelved Tasks Into Open Supply {Hardware} Stars
Jerry de Vos and Santosh Ilamparuthi (4:44:36) from TU Delft have been available to speak about how rejected patents are utilized in academia by specializing in open {hardware} improvement for social good. The establishment’s patent workplace receives round 100 purposes, with solely the highest 5 making the reduce. Nevertheless, there are some nice concepts in these rejected patents, and the group at TU Delft is working to faucet into these patents by creating open {hardware} assets that encourage information sharing.
A type of is the Schistoscope, a wise, low-cost microscope designed for detecting Schistosoma haematobium eggs, a parasite that causes urinary schistosomiasis – a waterborne parasitic an infection. The Schistoscope design takes benefit of a wise imaging platform constructed round a low-cost Android gadget, an imaging lens that is pushed by a picture recognition and classification algorithm. The platform is used to display urine, which it does utilizing a smartphone and digicam positioned above a plastic pattern holder, which is then analyzed by the algorithm.
Social Robots for Scholar Care
(📷:Farnaz Baksh, Matevz Zorec, Karl Kruusamae)
Farnaz Baksh and Matevz Zorec (5:06:20) introduced their open supply Robotic Research Companion (RSC), which is designed to assist college students keep organized, motivated, and able to study. Their RSC interacts with college students through voice, visuals, gestures, and even contact.
The robotic was constructed utilizing off-the-shelf elements and encompasses a 3D-printed physique, a Raspberry Pi 4, a Google AIY Voice Bonnet, a touchscreen, a speaker, LEDs, and servos. It additionally integrates pure language processing utilizing OpenAI’s massive language fashions (LLMs) to offer spoken dialogue and supply tutorial assist.
The RSC takes benefit of participatory design workshops to tailor the robotic to college students’ wants, offering motivation, psychological well being, and time administration. All {hardware} designs, code, and documentation are launched beneath open supply licenses to permit customers to construct their very own RSC.
Quetzal-1 CubeSat
Dan Alvarez highlighted (5:24:09) the Quetzal-1 CubeSat, which is Guatemala’s first satellite tv for pc and was designed by Alvarez, together with over 100 college students, volunteers and engineers from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). The satellite tv for pc operated for 211 days in orbit, capturing the primary seen picture of Earth from a Central American satellite tv for pc and transmitted almost 85,000 telemetry packets through SatNOGS floor stations earlier than ceasing operations as a result of a mix of a hung I²C bus and battery-cell failure.
Quetzal-1 was outfitted with an onboard laptop, transceiver and antenna, {an electrical} energy system (EPS), angle dedication and management system (ADCS), payload, antenna deployment mechanism (ADM) and extra. All of this was made obtainable on the group’s GitHub web page for many who want to construct their very own CubeSat.
Adventures in Promoting Open {Hardware}
Helen Leigh (6:04:39) joined the OHS talks to offer perception into her Adventures in Promoting Open {Hardware}. Her initiative presents a hands-on, conversational dive into the world of open supply {hardware}.
Leigh explains the significance of interviewing creators, everybody from satellite tv for pc engineers and FPGA builders to badge-makers and IoT platform groups, and supplies perception into the challenges, methods, and greatest practices concerned in launching, sustaining, and scaling open {hardware} merchandise.
She additionally explores sensible questions resembling licensing, group constructing, hybrid enterprise fashions (promoting {hardware} vs. promoting companies), and design accessibility, making the content material invaluable for engineers, lecturers, and people seeking to begin companies, which supplies invaluable perception for commercializing open supply {hardware}.
BrailleRap
Saad Chinoy (6:24:36) showcased his BrailleRap embossing printer, which is designed to print braille on paper and different supplies simply and as a platform to have interaction communities and deal with sustainability challenges. The machine exemplifies these notions because it makes use of a repurposed 3D printer, together with 3D-printed elements, solenoids and stepper motors to emboss totally different supplies.
The BrailleRap venture is supported by European open supply grants (NGI0) and supplies intensive open supply documentation, together with CAD recordsdata, firmware, software program bridges, and consumer guides. This enables makers, engineers, labs, and universities worldwide to construct, function, preserve, and modify BrailleRAP gadgets to swimsuit their wants.
Creating Low-Price, Open Supply {Hardware} for Ecosystems Monitoring
Gabriel Kiarie (6:47:38) detailed how he and different DSAIL researchers are creating low-cost, open supply {hardware} for ecosystem monitoring in Africa. Based on Kiarie, information assortment is important for offering detailed perception into the well being of ecosystems, however conventional strategies are not as much as the duty. To that finish, Kiarie and fellow researchers are methods to develop open supply boards outfitted with sensors for environment friendly information assortment.
Kiarie’s flagship venture, the DSAIL Bioacoustics System, makes use of a Raspberry Pi-based acoustic sensor powered by a customized photo voltaic battery energy board. The system is designed for distant deployment, the place it autonomously wakes and information sound utilizing a USB microphone. It saves solely segments with chook or ecosystem audio exercise, which optimizes storage and power use. This platform has already amassed over 100 hours of audio information and types the idea for machine‑learning-enabled chook name detection and classification.
Printegrated Circuits
Oliver Youngster (7:08:48) took the chance to speak about his Printegrated Circuits, which embeds PCBs and electronics into FFF 3D printed designs. This revolutionary method permits him to embed interactive PCB-based electronics immediately into FDM 3D prints, which permits capacitive and resistive sensory features inside the printed kind.
His approach combines conductive and non-conductive filaments, pauses the printer mid-print for board and electronics placement, and makes use of customized G-code to inject conductive filament into PCB through-holes, creating mechanically stable and electrically related hybrid elements that look cute besides.
Turning Your Favourite Sensor Right into a Scientific Instrument
(📷:Eli Silver through YouTube)
Eli Silver (7:25:31) talked about flip your favourite sensor right into a scientific instrument, which focuses on remodeling available client sensors into instruments for scientific measurement. He emphasizes that whereas client sensors are sometimes exact and cheap, they require extra steps to turn out to be dependable scientific devices.
Throughout his speak, Silver shares how hobbyist sensors, resembling these from gaming mice or climate stations, might be reworked into dependable scientific instruments through practices like cautious calibration, characterization, and a spotlight to consumer expertise. He goes on to focus on real-world open science {hardware} examples from Harris Lab, together with a velocimeter constructed from an optical mouse sensor and a DIY droplet generator, explaining that with minimal price and a little bit of creativity, available sensors might be reworked into reproducible measurement techniques.
Utilizing VanSpoof and F**dG3ar to Cut back E-Waste
(📷: Mike Coats through YouTube)
Mike Coats (7:47:53) detailed how his open {hardware} tasks, VanSpoof and FdG3ar**, assist forestall VanMoof X3 and S3 e-bikes from turning into e-waste. His venture’s targets are to reverse engineer proprietary bike elements which can be recognized to fail and make alternative elements available.
For instance, the VanMoof X3 e-shifter part has been recognized to fail, leaving riders unable to shift gears, and Coats’ managed to decode the communication between the bike and the e-shifter and designed a profitable working prototype that spoofs the unique e-shifter. By making these elements open supply and repairable, Coats is contributing to the “proper to restore” motion for VanMoof e-bikes, which might enable homeowners to increase the lifetime of their bikes and scale back digital waste.
Dedication to the Bit
(📷: Josh Sucher through YouTube)
The ultimate speaker, Josh Sucher (YouTube Hyperlink), was available to speak in regards to the significance of preserving and celebrating the lovers, makers, and engineers who revive and preserve classic computing {hardware}. In his speak, Sucher highlighted people who meticulously restore retro computer systems, retrofitting them with new elements, crafting customized interface add-ons, and preserving obscure platforms alive, whether or not out of affection, curiosity, or cultural preservation over making income.
Sucher explains that this dedication to outdated expertise offers him a useful connection to computing historical past, academic perception, and design evolution. He argues that these grassroots efforts are important to a wholesome {hardware} tradition, reminding us that “committing to the bit” isn’t just nostalgia however a significant endeavor that preserves technical innovation.
Conclusion
This 12 months’s Summit served as a reminder that open {hardware} is not nearly sharing code or schematics; it is about bringing collectively a tradition of collaboration with innovators, makers, designers and engineers around the globe. Whether or not it is reimagining medical gadgets, preserving classic tech, or spinning protein on the kitchen desk, the tasks on show pushed boundaries in considerate, sensible methods. If there’s one thread tying all of them collectively, it is that innovation does not want permission, only a place to develop.
