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!

Maker Birthdays: Stephanie Kwolek

Born on this date in 1923 in the Pittsburgh suburb of New Kensington, Stephanie Louise Kwolek (Wikipedia) graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 1946. She would go on, starting in 1964, to discover the remarkable properties of paraphenylene terephtalamide polymers, research which would culminate in 1971 with the advent of Kevlar (Wikipedia), an entirely new field of polymer chemistry, and the countless remarkable applications thereof we now enjoy. Today Dr. Kwolek is 87. Happy Birthday!

Continue Reading July 31st, 2010 Sean Michael Ragan

40,000 solar cookers in Darfur

Phil Shapiro (Takoma Park, Md.) sent us this video of solar cookers being built and deployed by villagers in Darfur. Amazing to think what impact some cardboard and foil material can have on the health and well-being of tens of thousands of people. [Thanks, Phil!] 40,000 solar cookers in Darfur

Continue Reading July 31st, 2010 Gareth Branwyn8

How-To: Make stage blood

Check out this nifty how-to video by ThScience on how to make your own fake blood, just in time for Halloween. It’s really entertaining, like a chemistry lesson and a classic rock concert rolled into one. Which pretty much sums up my entire high school career.

Continue Reading July 30th, 2010 Gareth Branwyn

MacGyver Mending: In the desert, try agave

Jonathan Johns, a coworker of ours over at O’Reilly Media and a frequent volunteer at Maker events, sent us a great little maker story that we think everyone will enjoy. My son, Christian, and his two roommates were on spring break in Arizona. As they were climbing up and around the hills, Christian’s cargo shorts […]

Continue Reading July 30th, 2010 Shawnconna6

Water + Alka Seltzer in zero gravity

From a series of videotaped experiments by astronaut Don Pettit performed about the ISS in 2003.

Continue Reading July 30th, 2010 Sean Michael Ragan6

How-To: Levitate a pencil lead

Prolific, anonymous YouTube DIY science guru NurdRage, who in the past has brought us instructions for synthesizing trichlorophenyl oxalate (TCPO) and instructions for using it to make homemade glowstickx, presents this cool video and corresponding Instructable showing how to demonstrate diamagnetic levitation using common pencil lead instead of the usual (and expensive) pyrolytic graphite.

Continue Reading July 29th, 2010 Sean Michael Ragan

Designs on a greener planet by Eric Strebel

I am an Industrial Designer living in Southfield where I share my life with two beautiful children. I’m not originally from Michigan. I moved here after graduating from Pratt in 1990 to work as an Industrial Designer in the automotive industry. For my first job, I interned at Ford, in the “Color and Trim” department, […]

Continue Reading July 28th, 2010 Gareth Branwyn

POPULAR SEARCHES: