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!

Hydropower from a public fountain

Hydropower from a public fountain

An artist who builds machines, I’m constantly dealing with the issue of how I can power my devices. Usually, I make it the old school way, simply using sockets in the wall of the gallery. But this project in Belgium happened in a public park, where no electricity was available. As there was a huge fountain, Jari and me decided to tap its hydropower and to generate electricity with it, as we found this far more elegant than using batteries. Furthermore, it was fitting conceptually to the devices that we were powering with the large fountain: It was some tiny private fountains that we rented out to visitors of the park.I think the concept of recycling energy which is available in the city anyway has a lot of potential.

Continue Reading John Edgar Park

StreetBeest takes over Somerville!

Over the past few weeks and months, the community of makers centered around Sprout in Somerville MA has been quietly hatching a plan to build a Theo Jansen inspired walker to walk in the Honk Festival parade. Dubbed the StreetBeest, after the Jansen’s StrandBeest project, it is constructed of strapping, PVC and a few custom fabricated drive train parts. For more information on the build and design, check out this interview with Shaunalyn Duffy of The Sprouts.

Continue Reading Chris Connors

Told You So: Whale snot takes Ig Nobel

As you may have heard, last week in Stockholm a bunch of lucky stiffs talented, hard-working scientists (and one fiction author) got to meet the King of Norway. Science-y highlights include the Physics prize, which went to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for some fancy tricks with carbon (specifically graphene); the Medicine prize, to Robert G. Edwards for inventing the test tube baby; and the Chemistry prize, to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, and Akira Suzuki for, ah, some other fancy tricks with carbon (plus palladium). That’s all well and good.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan8
Wooden library, Italian-style

Wooden library, Italian-style

The collection, housed at the University of Padua’s Center for the Study of the Alpine Environment, was manufactured in the 19th century or before. Each specimen consists of a 7.5x5x1.5-inch book-shaped box, executed in the wood of the subject tree, which opens to display samples of that tree’s seedling, leaves, flowers, seeds, fine roots, sawdust, charcoal, and ash. The spines are bound with samples of the tree’s bark, and of course everything is labeled. [Thanks, loondawg!]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan2