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!
Mike Pantrey, aka Flickr user Mrsuperpants, saw Phil’s post on Friday about Dave’s homemade laminar water jet and “in two evenings of tinkering in the garage, and some time reading up the background over a couple of lunchtimes” produced his own version, shown here. Construction details are available on Mike’s personal site. He cites The Laminar Project Forum as a valuable design resource.
Inspired by Sam Redfield’s rural alt.energy work in hydro-electric power, featured here on MAKE, “Fishboy,” working out of the Vancouver Hacker Space, created this micro-hydro plant in a plastic bucket. The power generator in the system is a Permanent Magnet Alternator (PMA) with a pelton wheel directly attached to the shaft. Water is sent through […]
Interesting article over at AAAS’s ScienceNOW about MagneLink, a short-range wireless communications system being developed by Lockheed-Martin that uses magnetic fields, rather than radio waves, to transmit information. Supposedly Tesla first experimented with such a system, hoping to compete with radio, in the 1890s. For most wireless applications, radio is clearly a superior system; magnetic wave communicators suffer from limited range and poor signal-to-noise ratios. There’s one thing they can do, however, that radio can’t: easily transmit through hundreds of meters of rock or clay. They can, therefore, be depended on in the event of a mining accident to allow trapped workers to communicate with rescue personal in situations where radio is impossible and wired systems may be inoperable or inaccessible.
Informal craftsmen, known as jua kali in Kenya, make their livelihoods by manufacturing products in the resource-constrained environment Westerners struggle so hard to adapt to. Their businesses thrive due to the complex networks among traders and producers.
One of our most-trafficked original tutorials over the past couple of years has been this simple trick for etching designs on glass bottles by using the label itself as a stencil. It’s a quick, satisfying, inexpensive project that yields long-lasting results with common equipment. In the process of porting the original blog post to our new Make: Projects platform, I took the opportunity to revisit the idea, updating the old images and adding a couple of helpful details, all of which was refreshingly easy using the new interface. Check it out.
First Ray built a minty water valve controller that gave him control over a garden water supply, then he turned it into a shield. For the water valve, I picked the Orbit yard watering valve. It’s widely available in home improvement stores, and it is cheap. It has two pins: applying +24v opens the valve, […]
You may have seen the distinctive Golden Mean snail car at Maker Faire, on the playa of Burning Man, or on the pages of MAKE Volume 16, and likely you wish you had a drivable snail of your own. Thanks to creator Jon Sarriugarte, you can get to welding, following the 22-step how-to he posted […]
