Identifying Unknown Plastics
This is a piece of free-burning ABS tubing showing characteristic flame color and smoke. The burn test, as it’s known, correlates a plastic sample’s composition with a set of observable properties including…
Science
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!
“18650 Things To Do With An Old Laptop Battery”
As much as I enjoyed this unusual technical info from GeekDad contributor Roy Wood, I was disappointed to learn that not all 18,650 things you can do with an old laptop battery are specifically listed in the article. Moreover, by a truly amazing coincidence, “18650” turns out to be the part number for the most common size lithium-ion cell used in assembling laptop batteries.
QR Code Island Concept
QR Code Island is a delightfully hare-brained concept design from Mat Barnes and Eddie Blake, which will continue to delight me until news appears that someone is actually trying to build such a thing.
Fire Without Matches: Twenty-Three Spontaneously-Igniting Reactions
Really wonderful community video collaboration from the chem-hackers of sciencemadness.org, including MAKE pal and guest blogger Hayden Parker. Over about fourteen minutes, we are treated to a bench-side view of two dozen energetic reactions that share an interesting property: reagents that, on mixing, spontaneously burst into flame.
Nested Plastic Bottle Caps Give Mosaic Rich Color Palette
As impressive as this bottle-cap self-portrait from artist Mary Ellen Croteau may be, I probably would not have chosen to mention her piece “CLOSE,” here, if it weren’t for the interesting way that she has used sets of nested plastic bottle caps and bottle-cap liners to achieve a much deeper color palette than would’ve been possible using bottle caps without the nesting trick. Clever!
Math Monday: Relativity for Real
Escher’s Relativity comes to life through 3D printing.
