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!

The Alkali Metal Series, Reacting with Air and Water

If I understand the annotations on this, YouTuber ironnica’s only posted video, correctly, the footage was produced by a New Jersey educational media company in 1991, and the delightfully British narration more recently by somebody associated with the UK’s Open University. In any case, it is a perfectly concise, interesting, and entertaining demonstration of the increasing reactivities of the group I metals lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, and cesium.

Continue Reading June 9th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan16

Etched-PCB Doctor Who Artwork

Love George Hadley’s etched PCB art influenced by the awe-inspiring British science fiction show Doctor Who: The main good time-traveling race in the show is called the Time Lords that live on the planet Gallifrey. The Gallifreyan artwork used on the artifacts and relics of the Time Lord race is some of my favorite, so […]

Continue Reading June 9th, 2011 John Baichtal4

Drug Cartels Building DIY Tanks

From BBC News: “Mexican soldiers have destroyed four “narco-tanks”, lorries fitted with steel armour thought to have been made for the Gulf drug cartel. The vehicles were seized in a garage in Camargo, in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Authorities said the cartel used the tanks, fitted with air-conditioning and steel plates, to patrol its smuggling routes and transport drugs to the US.”

Continue Reading June 8th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan34

Electric Diwheel With Active Rotation Damping (EDWARD)

An honors mechanical engineering project from a group of thirteen at Australia’s University of Adelaide. Rich technical detail available at the project’s webpage.

Continue Reading June 7th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan58

Math Monday: Cardboard Catenary Arches

By pleating a square sheet of paper with a pattern of concentric squares, one can fold a saddle shape that mathematicians call a hyperbolic paraboloid, sometimes nicknamed a hypar. Erik Demaine led a workshop at a recent Museum of Mathematics event where he showed how multiple hypars can be assembled to make star-like geometric forms.

Continue Reading June 6th, 2011 Gareth Branwyn6

Showing Off Aluminum’s Natural Reactivity via Gallium Alloy

Very interesting vid from 16-year-old Hayden Parker, who impressed me greatly with his animated chemistry demonstrations at Maker Faire. Metallic aluminum can be dissolved in liquid gallium to create an aluminum-bearing alloy that is liquid at ambient conditions. Because it can flow in the alloy, the aluminum cannot form a stable passive oxide layer and will react violently with water, which nicely demonstrates the normally-hidden high natural reactivity of metallic aluminum.

Continue Reading June 6th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan1

How-To: Operate a Homemade Scanning Electron Microscope

When we last checked in on Ben Krasnow’s homemade SEM, he had just achieved his first successful image with the device. As his latest video shows, the project has come a long way since then. It’s a long clip, by internet standards, at almost 10 minutes, but Ben does a great job of communicating what he’s doing and why, taking us through each step in the imaging process, from loading the sample, through pumping down the vacuum chamber and powering up the electronics, to fine-tuning the image itself.

Continue Reading June 6th, 2011 Sean Michael Ragan2

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