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!
If your car’s air condition is broken, or if it just doesn’t have one – this summer you might consider building your own, like this person did. This DIY car air conditioner is a wall unit inserted in the back window of an automobile and it is powered by a gas generator. With this many wrongs, it’s just so right. Link.
Interesting tactic, people were driving too fast in a neighborhood, so the neighborhood built “roadwitches” – “These type of “DIY traffic-calming happenings” are described by their creator as “roadwitches” and have included an 11-feet high rabbit, a big bed (for a sleeping policeman), a Casualty-style fake crash scene for Halloween and the setting up of a living room in the middle of the road.” Link.
PDF downloads on how to make those cool (but expensive) enclosed glass ecosystem – “Here you have the choice of two different ecosystems, a “dry land” ecosystem like the one in our Virtual Ecosphere and a marine aquatic one.” [via] Link. If anyone has made one of these, post up in the comments and let me know how it worked out.
Excellent video on how fiber optics are made – “…”At the Speed of Light” is inspirational on any number of levels. It describes what Corning calls “the union of glass and light”. Developed in the 70’s by a trio of scientists — Drs. Keck, Maurer and Schultz — who went on to win the National Medal of Technology for their efforts, it is truly remarkable. They are making fibers thinner than a human hair. The single mode fiber is a mere 8 microns thick. One micron is one-millionth of a meter.” Link.
Speedometers, rearview mirrors, many will have LCDS (I can’t wait to mod one!)….“To say the new Mercedes S-Class dashboard is impressive is probably the understatement of the year. Basically, it’s a [LCD screen] embedded in the dash that displays all your data virtually. What’s cool is it mimics analog gauges like the original Carrera GT concept was sporting when we all first saw it for the first time. But the real mind blower, is when the night vision activates and everyting in front of you disappears and you see a video screen displaying what’s in front of you.” [via] Link.
Best use of lasers and toast so far…Jmengel writes “In the spirit of laser etched laptops, new uses for laser etching systems are found daily. After a bit of experimenting, I found that a laser etcher will in fact etch foodstuffs. Christmas is the time for giving, so what gift could be finer than your own toast blessed by the image of your preferred diety.” Link. Coming soon Flickr to toast lasering….
Hans writes “Laser Chess was created by Mike Duppong back in the late 80s, and you can find lots of software versions of the it on the web. However, a Brazilian student named Alexandre Van de Sande actually made a actual working laser version of the game!” Link.
