Maker Faire: One Maker’s Perspective
A timelapse of one maker’s Maker Faire experience.
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!
How to Collect and Display Insects
In the midst of the current 17-year cicada emergence here on the East Coast, the good folks over at Radiolab have posted an interview with entomologist Dr. Louis Sorkin, in which he describes how to collect and display insect specimens in shadowboxes (or cigar boxes if you want that DIY aesthetic).
Synthetic Biology for Makers
John Cumbers and a team of synthetic biologists are offering a one-day course on the subject in San Francisco. The course is aimed at makers and programmers, and designed to give a comprehensive introduction into synthetic biology. Last week, I learned that we’re much closer to DIY synthetic biology than many of us realize. This course should be a good primer.
Instant Giant Tetrahedron
Continuing a Math Mondays tradition of building Sierpinski triangles and tetrahedra out of various materials, today we’re going to do it with mailing tubes. The basic unit requires six identical mailing tubes and a piece of cord or twine about 8.5 times as long as the tubes.
Penny Sierpinski Triangle
Here’s a project we did a long time ago in collaboration with Vi Hart, that somehow never made it into Math Mondays. The idea is simple: lay out pennies on a large horizontal surface, such as a floor, in the pattern of a Sierpinski triangle. How many? Well, the basic triangle with a one-penny size hole
3D-Printing Mechanical Hands
This is really cool, a MakerBot Industries-supported 3D printable prosthetic hand project. When Richard Van As, a master carpenter in Johannesburg, South Africa, decided to make a set of mechanical fingers, it wasn’t just for fun. He’d lost four of the fingers on his right hand in an unfortunate work accident. For a tradesman like […]
Mapping Buildings with a Kinect
This cool mapping system created by MIT uses a Kinect motion tracker, a laser range finder, GPS, and inertial sensors to map out the interior of a building. [via Beyond the Beyond]