Wheatgrass Easter Egg Centerpiece
This is a really cute and kid-friendly craft to do this Spring to bring the outdoors in.
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!
Make: Projects – Cable Dyeing
If you want an extension cord, power cord, or other plastic-insulated cable in an unusual color, and you can find one in white, there’s a good chance you can dye it to suit your preference using this technique.
Turns out many cables are sheathed with PVC, and will take the same oil-based stains as PVC pipe. If you want a purple cord, for instance, you can just treat a white PVC cord with purple primer. If you want some other color, it is easy to prepare your own custom stains from clear PVC cleaner and concentrated solvent dyes.
iGeigie, an iPhone-Connected Geiger Counter
If you’re not following along with the great work RDTN is doing to create networks of radiation sensors, check out just one of their projects: iGeigie, a geiger counter that plugs into your iPhone. iGeigie – world premiere of a portable Geiger Counter with iPhone dock. – Glass Geiger Tube can detect beta and gamma […]
Top 10: Electric Bikes
From garage conversions to hot commercial products, electrified tall bikes to “stealth” electrification, we have covered a lot of electric bike stuff over the years. These are the ten posts that have generated the most traffic since we started collecting data back in 2008. If you’re thinking of undertaking your own homebrew bike electrification, this list should be a pretty good place to start reading. Enjoy!
Marble-Shooting Wooden Crossbow Punches Through Plywood
Just another little bit of sweetness from Matthias Wandel, whose fantastic “woodworking for engineers” site, woodgears.ca, we have, to date, linked to more than a dozen times. See below.
Purdue Claims World Record Goldberg Machine
It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, “The Time Machine,” a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower.
NASA Make: Challenge webcast (video)
If you missed yesterday’s webcast about the NASA Make: Challenge, check out the video here. You can also read the chat transcript, full of relevant links. Dale Dougherty chats with experts Kris Kimel, Twyman Clements, and James Kuhl. MAKE is happy to announce that we’re partnering with Teachers in Space and NASA’s Emerging Commercialization Space […]
