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!
The relatively straightforward swing-hinged dissection of an equilateral triangle to a square in this video is called “Dudeney’s dissection” and has been known since 1902. For a gallery of hinged dissections, check out Tse-hsuan Yang’s page at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University.
Britons John Bryant and Chris Sangwin have written a book called How Round is Your Circle? that looks incredible. I haven’t read it (yet), but the promotional website by itself has me sold already. Highlights include Reuleaux tetrahedra, square-hole drilling, and self-righting polyhedra.
We’ve just added a bunch of new content to the Make: Science Room. In “General,” we added Bob’s brief on how to set up and keep a proper lab notebook, in “Chemistry,” we added Section 12 on the fine art of studying reaction rates in chemical processes, called “chemical kinetics,” and in “Forensics,” we take […]
Almost 100 years ago, John Krubsack made this amazing chair by growing a bunch of box elder trees together.
I reviewed The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind for Good. I think it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Here’s an excerpt of my review: William Kamkwamba’s parents couldn’t afford the $80 yearly tuition for their son’s school. The boy sneaked into the classroom anyway, dodging administrators for a few weeks until they […]
Holly of Chez Beeper Bebe embarked on a summer-long project of crafting a wardrobe of cloth napkins for her home, and recently reached her goal of 40 napkins. Along the way, she’s shared tutorials for several of the napkin variations she’s used, including ruffled napkins and ric rac-trimmed napkins. She’s concluded her series with a […]
Now here’s a perfect example of why I love the MAKE community. In response to my earlier post about the possibility of modern mechanical gate openers, reader MichaelLubke went out and took these photos (1,2,3) of a real live working mechanical gate near his ranch. What’s more, he ran down the original patent on the gate’s design! This patent, US number 3,163,947, was issued to Mr. Alvin E. Gandy of Eden, TX, in the year of Our Lord nineteen-hundred and sixty-five. His invention, known as the “Gandy Slide-A-Way,” is activated by the weight of one of your vehicle’s tires on a short steel ramp built into the driveway right in front of the gate. I wonder how many of these were ever made?
