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!
There are just two weeks left before the first-ever Maker Faire Detroit, taking place on July 31 and August 1 at The Henry Ford. Motor City is a Maker City, and it’s exciting to see it all coming together. Among the creative projects coming to the Faire is the gloriously pedal-powered BigDog (pictured above), which […]
Just ran across this fascinating little paper published in Nature back in 2002 by Gert J. Van Tonder, Michael J. Lyons, and Yoshimichi Ejima. In it, the authors apply a simple shape analysis to the layout of the 15 boulders in Japan’s most famous karesansui (or “Zen garden,” as they are often called in the West) at the RyÅan-ji temple in Kyoto. The technique they use is called “medial axis transformation,” which, by my understanding, basically means that they took the Voronoi diagram of the boulders in the garden as viewed from above. The paper’s authors explain their method with an elegant analogy:
Our pal Derek “Deek” Diedricksen, of Tiny Yellow House and RelaxShacks.com, sent us a video tour of his 100% indie-produced, “trash-funded” book, Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever Else We Could Squeeze in Here. The book is a hoot and an inspiration, crammed with Deek’s designs — from practical […]
Charles Guan of lolriokart< fame is back with his latest creation, the FANKART!!! 2 propeller-powered shopping cart.
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this beautiful stool/table from Madox.net. The acrylic parts were cut by Ponoko in 6mm acrylic and then wound with four layers of pink monofilament line to create four distinct, nested hyperboloid surfaces.
H.P. “Pete” Friedrichs, author of the awesome self-published DIY electronics tomes “Voice of the Crystal” and “Instruments of Amplification,” has a new book coming out and he sent us this video teaser: The book, to be entitled, “Marvelous Magnetic Machines” describes the construction of five different motors from household junk. The style and craftsmanship is […]
Speaking broadly, non-Newtonian fluids are of two types: Either they get thinner under shear, or they get thicker. Shear-thickening fluids, like the common corn flour-water mixture sometimes called “oobleck,” obviously, get thicker when a force is applied. This new and highly secretive non-Newtonian fluid formulation by British defense giant BAE is like oobleck to the power of ten, and can, reportedly, be very effectively combined with Kevlar to improve human body armor performance against bullets. [via Fast Company]
