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!
Founded by Elon Musk of PayPal and Tesla Motors fame, Space X has become the first company to successfully build and launch a spacecraft into low Earth orbit and have it return safely. Launched from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lifted its Dragon cargo capsule into orbit, performed extensive test maneuvers across two orbits, and splashed down just after 11 a.m. PST on December 8, 2010.
YouTuber srobbin identifies this as a “500kV switch opening up in the Nevada desert,” but provides very little detail otherwise. Still: Holy smoke. It arcs for a good six seconds, with a sight and a sound that, even on video, is pretty terrifying. In person…well, I’m not sure I can even begin to imagine what it would be like.
Rob Cruickshank built this sweet laser microscope based, at least partly, I flatter myself to presume, on my recent project. There are more pics in Rob’s Flickr set, including one of the custom screw-fitting he made to hold down the momentary switch on his laser pointer. Rob also reports that water squeezed from an aquarium filter is an excellent source of microfauna-rich samples. [Thanks, Rob!]
Connoisseur of terror and Maker Faire superstar Chris Hackett has a new TV show pilot airing this Friday on the Science Channel. It’s called “Stuck With Hackett”, and it’s about building machines for the finer things in life from found/salvaged parts. Hackett’s the director of Madagascar Institute, an arts combine in Brooklyn that makes jet-powered […]
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, from user gunterhausfrau.
Here is the third installment of our series of Make: Shorts covering “Maker Pioneers,” inventors, entrepreneurs, makers who are dreaming up clever solutions to today’s energy and environmental problems. In this video, we visit somebody MAKE readers are likely already familiar with, Limor Fried, aka Ladyada, from Adafruit Industries. Limor talks about Adafruit’s kit business […]
Unlike all the other men in my family (and most of my friends) I am not an electrical engineer by training. I’ve spent my life around electrical engineering, and although I’ve known about the historical details of the invention of the transistor since I was a wee lad, I can’t claim to have understood how the first transistor worked until I saw Bill Hammack’s video for this week. So, thanks for that, Bill, on a personal level.
