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!
Here’s a follow up to my previous post “Jeri Ellsworth vs Talking buses #Trimet“. Jeri a well known engineer created a video showing an alternative way to make a noise-making device and strategy for TriMet’s new audible warning system for pedestrians. Jeri has also has made a low cost body scanner, transistors, how-to videos, many […]
Using special designed and machined grippers, this prototype ‘bot from researchers Matthew Journee, XiaoQi Chen, James Robertson, Mark Jermy, and Mathieu Sellier can climb wooden, metal, and cloth surfaces with ease. Rough textures and small gaps in the substrate apparently present no problem, and the video includes impressive footage of the machine dragging an additional half-kilo weight up a wooden door and rolling around upside-down on a ceiling made of glass.
Hereโs a link to the fantastic British brainy-toys site Grand Illusions that Iโve been hoarding for awhile, hoping to someday reproduce the process and post it as a tutorial. I have tried sun-drying several of the largest orange peels I can find on suitable forms, and have made one functional round box that is quite small and ugly compared to these.
Old but very interesting resource from Canadian Robert Scharein, programmer of the software package KnotPlot. The knots are organized by the number of crossings, and can be clicked on to display rotatable 3D models. [via Maxwell’s Demon]
OpenPCR first came to life last February, and we showed off our first prototype at Maker Faire last May. Those of you following the OpenPCR blog know we designed, refined, and engineered our hearts out. Today, Josh and I are pleased to make the first version of the OpenPCR design docs public. Whether youโre a […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics 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 […]
Are you the innovative type, the cook who marches to a different drummer — used to expressing your creativity instead of just following recipes? Are you interested in the science behind what happens to food while it’s cooking? Then Cooking for Geeks by Jeff Potter is the book for you. Available in the MakerShed.
