With big, expensive equipment and closely con- trolled experiment schedules, particle physics has never been a field for the do-it-yourselfer. But that didn’t stop Tim Koeth from building two operational cyclotrons on his own time and dime.
Forget billionaire Richard Branson’s overpriced tourist spaceships. For a few thousand bucks, physics student Art Vanden Berg put his computer-controlled model glider 79,000 feet into the stratosphere.
Garnet Hertz will never want or need to debug his mobile robot, because it’s controlled by a live cockroach.
Makers! Set your RadioSharks! This Friday (April 1st) I’ll be on the 2nd hour of NPR’s Science Friday with Ira Flatow talking about DIY projects and lots of fun projects you can do with stuff around your house. More information about Science Friday can be found here as well a station locator with times with streaming info here.
Wow, two tobacco based projects in a row. Here’s a pretty cool site that shows you how to make a Cigar box guitar. Check out the Hall of Fame with mentions of Jimi Hendrix, Carl Perkins, Gov’t Mule, Albert King and Ted Nugent. I have an old Cigar box with bolts in it, once I work through those bolts- I think I’ll make one of these.
Amps, iPod chargers and mice made of Altoid tins, Atari 2600 cartridge getting a new life as flash drives- just about anything can be used a great project case. Even an empty pack of cigarettes. Here’s a neat example of an under $30 DIY pocket amp on an Archos 20 Gb mp3 player with open sourced Roxbox firmware, and Etymotic ER-6 headphones. The surgeon general has determined that this project is smokin’.
Smash’s World points out that the PSP will change colors based on what month it is. 12 colors in all, January = Grey, February = Dull-Yellow, March = Lime-Green, April = Pink, May = Dark-Green, June = Light-Purple, July = Tealish-Blue, August = Blue, September = Purple, October = Gold, November = Brown, December = Red. Here’s a quick video I shot of this (save this file to your local system and/or PSP in MP_Root/100MNV01 folder to view). Ideally we could add more parameters like changing color based on battery life, connection, time of day and full/empty status of the memory stick…
