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I built a QR code with my bare hands to see how it works

Veritasium · 9.7M views · 2024-09-30 · 35:13

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Overview

Veritasium builds a QR code by hand to explain how it works. It covers the history of Morse code and barcodes, how QR codes encode data, why damaged codes still scan, and how safe they are.

On Hacker News

HN points to it as a recent, well-made explanation of QR code structure and error correction.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2024–2025

Topics

Information theory & signal processingRecreational & visual math
Search by tags
qr codeserror correctionbarcodesveritasiumencoding

What people said

nhatcher · 2024-10 · Recommendation

Derek Muller just did an interesting take on QR codes and their history on his popular channel veritasium: [VIDEO]

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gukov · 2025-06 · Reference

Yep, if I'm using a physical medium like paper I want to allow for some degradation. Here's a Veritasium video on QR codes: [VIDEO]

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throw0101c · 2024-11 · Reference

Recent Veritasium video on the topic, "I used to hate QR codes. But they're actually genius": * [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Veritasium, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

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  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources