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!
Bradford Hansen-Smith has been experimenting with structures made from a great many 10-inch bamboo skewers held together with short pieces of rubber tubing. He calls the technique Stickweaving and presents a gallery of interesting examples. Modular units connect to neighboring units with tubing and the entire structure is flexible enough to be collapsed or morphed into various surfaces.
Laura Allen urges attendees of Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 to disconnect from the water grid. Utilizing technology that can be easily implemented in residential areas, grey water is taken from the waste stream and redirected in appropriate ways. With fresh water being a precious resource, these teachings seek to assure conservation for the future.
Adafruit writer and MAKE pal johngineer has prepared and published a 3D model of Captain Picard’s tea cup, based on images found at TREKPROPS.DE. I love the of using “Tea, Earl Grey, hot,” an image so often reached for to illustrate the idea of 3D-printing in general, as a benchmark for the state of the technology…
Sébastien Bourdeauducq of /tmp/lab visited PWL, a “one-man vacuum tube laboratory” headed up by Aleksander Zawada. He starts the triode by assembling the grid. To do this, he takes a piece of nickel wire, and soldered a small spiral of molybdenum wire on it – one turn and one solder at a time. He uses […]
With over 200,000 views, Hayden Parker’s YouTube channel has become a popular spot for watching home chemistry demonstrations. Hayden took his show on the road to Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, where he set up a basic chemistry lab, teaching the science of chemistry and wowing passerby with seemingly magic color-changing chemical reactions.
In this vid, “mathemusician” Vi Hart and Sal Khan (of the amazing Khanacademy) discuss the difference between linear and logarithmic scales and human perception. I like their joking idea of a liner scaled piano where the keys would get fatter and fatter as you moved up the scale.
To date, most of our Weekend Projects, by design, have been battery-powered, save our inaugural project, the USB Webcam Microscope, which uses a USB cable (5V) as its power supply. In our Floating Glow Display project, the battery clip even provided a sculptural element, doubling as the base for our display. Our latest project still uses batteries, only now, you’ll never need to swap them out for fresh power! The Solar TV Remote project will teach you first and foremost how to fabricate a solar power pack capable of supplying two rechargeable AA batteries with 3V of renewable energy goodness!
