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!

Color chemistry crayons

Color chemistry crayons

This is understandable, really, because the chemical composition of many crayons, even if you ignore the wax binder and just focus on the coloring, is extraordinarily complicated, containing many different pigments carefully blended to achieve just the right color. Even if the formulations weren’t trade secrets, it’d be doubtful if many of them could be fit on a crayon label in a legible typeface.

Visualizing American air power with models

Visualizing American air power with models

In 1942, shortly after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt committed the U.S. economy to the production of 60,000 warplanes that year, and suggested that as many as 185,000 aircraft might be produced by the end of 1943. He turned out to be almost correct. In June 1944, TIME reported 171,257 aircraft produced since Pearl Harbor. In 1942, however, those were Herculean goals, yet to be achieved, and as part of an effort to help Americans understand the task before them, a fleet of 4,500 model airplanes was suspended from the ceiling of Chicago’s Union Station. Once you absorb the spectacle of 4,500 planes, of course, then comes the whammy: That’s only 1/48th of the production goal. The image above is 600 pixels wide. At that scale, if your monitor’s pitch is 72 dpi, an image of all 185,000 planes would be 33 feet wide. [via NOTCOT]

Make a Rustic Mallet

This Rustic Mallet video and step-by-step how-to over on Borganic.net is amazing. The entire thing makes me want to go running into the woods, searching for the perfect sticks and logs. I’ve already asked my husband if we have a tenon cutter and have gone searching in the tool shed for a paddle bit. Borganic […]

CNCed greenhouse watering system

CNCed greenhouse watering system

Pierre Grand, an architect from Caussens, France, wrote in to share this interesting greenhouse watering system that he created in Sketchup. (B)ased on the fixing system developed by Bill Young (100kgarages.com), the GYRO green house recovers rainwater for broadcast in different vegetable bins arranged circular manner around the central axis. The system is under development […]

Land steam record attempt

Land steam record attempt

By way of Steampunk Workshop comes news of the U.S. Land Steam Record (USLSR) Team and their attempts to build and race the fastest steam-powered vehicle on Earth. They plan to try for that record on the famous Bonneville Salt Flats, as early as August, 2011. The previous land steam speed record is held by […]