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!
Instructables user kstruve writes: I currently live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, which gets mighty hot in the summer. This summer, we’ve had several days around or above 110 degrees. I have twin baby boys, and despite cracking the windows, using reflective seat covers and running the A/C full blast when driving them around, their […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Continuing our fiber arts theme of past weeks, today’s Math Monday offers an excellent example of mathematical needlepoint. This piece illustrates a Hilbert curve, taken to the sixth approximation. The continuously changing color of the thread makes it easy for your eye not to lose its place […]
The Dumponaut, an art project envisioning a home made out of a dumpster. There are countless external controls on our existence, and a big one is the trade of capital for goods. The loophole lives in dumpsters: where there is surplus, there is an exit from the system. but it isn’t a true exit – […]
Hans, a maker from Trondheim, Norway, sent us a link to this Wimshurst Influence Machine he bought. He asked about the history of the device from the seller and found out that it was used in a grade school, from 1911 to 1951, and was owned by the principal. Nice job on the restoration: The […]
Now through September 30, 2010, we’re offering 50% OFF all of our Science Room products in the Maker Shed. This is a great deal for any chemistry hobbyists, teachers, or schools. Just remember to use coupon code “MADSCIENCE” at checkout to receive your 50% OFF!
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.
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]
