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!
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics The icosahedron consists of twenty equilateral triangles, meeting five at each vertex. Here are two icosahedron constructions you can make from soda bottles. These were designed and built by Mario Marin, whose web site shows many creative ways to recycle household objects into polyhedral structures. Pairs of […]
Follow the Team Bobcat Ford Fiesta caravan… American Journey 2.0: AJtheFiesta takes Boulder By Laura Rich Apparently in need of a good road-trip stretch, AJ the Ford Fiesta checked into Yo Momma Yoga. “It was an auto-check-in,” explained T.J. Giuli, research engineer at Ford Infotronics, at a Tweetup at Bookends Cafe in Boulder, Colorado, the […]
Wendy explains how to make home made biodiesel with no special equipment in less than five minutes. She makes use of the “cubbies” that vegetable oil is sold in and make batches that are 3-4 gallons in size. More: HOW TO – Grow your own oil Weekend Project: Making Biodiesel Make your own biodiesel DIY: […]
Follow the Team Bobcat Ford Fiesta caravan… Team Bobcat visits Northwestern University The members of Team Bobcat made their first stop at Northwestern University on Friday. They set up in front of the Technological Institute, giving demonstrations and showing off Caravan Track to students and interested passersby. I got a chance to meet up with […]
When I was still living in Dallas, our local recycling center included a giant steel dumpster, open at only one end, with an elevated platform you could climb up to chuck your glass bottles in. I was in high school, then, and it was pretty common, when we were bored, to go down there on the weekend and pass an hour or so smashing glass bottles into the dumpster just for the fun of it. You’d see “grown-ups” there doing the same thing, and more than once perfectly “respectable” suburban adults would see what we were up to and join in, which inevitably put a big grin on everybody’s face. I’m sure this kind of impromptu bottle-breaking game happens naturally at recycling centers all over the world.
MAKE subscriber Steve Hoefer sent us a link to this fascinating piece on retro-direct drives for bikes. Not really sure how practical it is, but the engineering is interesting. And, it’s probably a great way to work different leg muscles. What’s a retro-direct bike? At the beginning of the 20th century, although derailleurs and geared […]
There’s certainly no shortage of high tech gadgetry and fantastical creations coming to this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area, May 22nd and 23rd at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. But the magic of Maker Faire is rooted in the variety of projects present, everything from science to craft to robots to food makers, and beyond. Take, […]
