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!
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this cool vid from Jessica Rosenkrantz featuring a simple Hele-Shaw cell, which, per Wikipedia, demonstrates โStokes Flow between two parallel flat plates separated by an infinitesimally small gap.โ Further, โ[v]arious problems in fluid mechanics can be approximated to Hele-Shaw flows and thus the research of these flows is of importance.โ
From a group of what seem to be mostly Italian scientists with the delightfully ominous name of The Octopus Project. Construction details were published as Design of a Biomimetic Robotic Octopus Arm in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics in 2009. A 2008 conference preprint is available here.
OK, so itโs not, actually. Bulletproof, that is. But with 3/32? aluminum sheet covers, nickel-plated steel piano hinges, and all-riveted construction, itโs a damn sight tougher than just about any other 3-ring binder youโre likely to encounter in the wild. Especially those crappy cardboard-shrinkwrapped-in-vinyl models most of us had to make do with as schoolkids.
We’ve covered Ben Krasnow’s awesome work here before. At last year’s Maker Faire, he showed off his liquid nitrogen generator (for which he won at least one Editor’s Blue Ribbon). Now he’s posted to his blog this latest project, a working DIY scanning electron microscope! It’s been months of work to get the scope together […]
An oscilloscope is a surprisingly easy to use diagnostic tool for electronics once you’ve learned the basics.
Jack Heathcote is now the proud owner of what, at 4,800 gallons, is reportedly the largest home aquarium in the United Kingdom. Whatโs more, he designed and built it himself. Thatโs him diving in the tank (and looking rather strikingly, IMHO, like Abraham Sapien from Hellboy), which is apparently the easiest way to clean the interior. Nice details and pictures over at The Daily Mail. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]
Check out the scanning electron microscope Ben Krasnow made. It’s a fine example of some of the higher-end DIY lab equipment starting to show up in garages and hackerspaces around the world.
