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

Veritasium1 HN recommenders · 2024–2025
9.7M views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2024-09-30

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.

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

Information theory & signal processingRecreational & visual math

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3 comments from Hacker News

@nhatcher2024 · in “The history of the barcode”

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

RecommendsView on HN
@throw0101c2024 · in “Creating a QR Code step by step”

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

CitesView on HN
@gukov2025 · in “Show HN: Qrkey – Offline private key backup on paper”

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]

CitesView on HN