Open Source Caving: 20 Years of Making Cave Mapping Tools

“In his talk Open Source Caving: 20 Years of Making Cave Mapping Tools at Hackaday Europe 2026, Phil takes us through a series of progressively more advanced open hardware devices that he’s designed to increase the speed and accuracy of underground mapping efforts. Along the way, he’s learned a number of valuable lessons about designing hardware that’s robust enough to handle the uniquely challenging environment underground while still being accessible enough for a hobbyist to build and use.” Interesting, and entertaining, to listen to this talk about the progression of the technology being used. So true too that these environments require dustproof, shockproof, and waterproof devices. And of course all being open source, means anyone can reproduce it and improve it too. See https://hackaday.com/2026/08/17/hackaday-europe-2026-open-source-hardware-goes-underground-literally