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!
This March, Tokyo Hackerspace was hooking Geiger counters up to the Internet to get accurate radiation readings and stream the data for all to see. Since then, they haven’t been resting on their laurels, teaming up with Safecast and developing a NetRad shield that fits on the Freakduino wireless microcontroller board. THS member Akiba gave […]
Ever curious to see what’s inside those everyday objects we take for granted, EDN’s Margery Conner tears apart the AmbientLED light bulb from Philips to see what makes the oddly yellow bulb emit a white light when lit.
A few years later, the Neutrinos drifted into Port Isabel, Texas where a 19 year-old college dropout named Constance Hockaday was living with her parents. Hockaday, a rather alienated young woman, immediately became enthralled with the idea of living on a boat and not paying rent. Before long, she was on the boat, so to speak. Her life hasn’t been the same since.
Members who support psychoactive chemical information clearinghouse Erowid.org at levels of $125 or greater are rewarded with one of these lovely hand-worked borosilicate glass CPK-style molecular models, with subjects ranging from the (rather boring) 3-atom linear nitrous oxide molecule to the truly gorgeous LSD-25 molecule shown to lower left.
The diameters of US quarters and pennies are very close to the ratio needed to make a truncated icosahedron, i.e., a soccer ball in the US or a football elsewhere. Copper pennies take the place of the usually black pentagons and quarters take the place of the usually white hexagons, so even the colors work out.
Instructables user and aerospace engineer maewert shows us how to turn a backyard shed into a personal astronomical observatory. By modding the roof of a shed so that it can slide off (either manually or driven by a garage door opener), you too can be ready for celestial observation at a moment’s notice.
Axel Boman’s video highlights the Radioactive Orchestra, a project that assigns musical tones to reactive isotopes, making some seriously cool music along the way. [Thanks, Kristoffer!]
