DIY science is the perfect way to use your creative skills and learn something new. With the right supplies, some determination, and a curious mind, you can create amazing experiments that open up a whole world of possibilities. At home-made laboratories or tech workshops, makers from all backgrounds can explore new ideas by finding ways to study their environment in novel ways – allowing them to make breathtaking discoveries!
Makers amaze me. I’m always in awe of how many different projects they seemed to be juggling at once. As soon as you dig into a conversation, you can usually uncover about five more that they’re mentally planning. Show them a new tool and you’ll get a list of new applications and experiments they can use it for.
Aerogels are fascinating materials, with lots of interesting and, frankly, amazing properties, but they are not easy to make. These days, industrial manufacture with an eye towards commercial applications, primarily as thermal insulators, is bringing the price down some, at least for granules, but larger pieces still cost around $50 US per cubic inch. Ben Krasnow, impressively, has made his own…
Inexpensive light sticks can be held together with rubber bands to make glowing geometric structures. Here’s a construction based on the truncated dodecahedron, with a tetrahedron over each triangle. Assembling it is a fun group activity.
This beautiful engine teaches you the basics of thermodynamics as its power comes from an external heat source, which can be anything from fuel to solar to geothermal energy. The instructions are in Japanese, but the Maker Shed page has an English translation. MAKE is proud to be the exclusive distributor in North America for […]
Karol ลuszcz is studying electronics at Poland’s Gdaลsk University of Technology. I’d say he’s on-track for an impressive career. This vector-graphics laser projector, his third prototype, includes three laser modules at 650, 532, and 405 nm wavelengths (making it more of an RGV projector, really). Many parts were salvaged, for instance, from a DVD burner, a printer, and a “disco ball.”
A look at ten of our favorite flamethrowers covered here on Make:.
Childrens’ Technology maven and playful tinkerer Scott Traylor came up with this whimsical mod for used movie theatre 3d glasses. With his simple PDF template everyone can go green in more ways than one. From his site:
