The Simplest DC Motor in the World?
AA battery + coil of wire + neodymium magnets = DC Motor!
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!
The Six Bottle Test
Marco Robustini wanted to test the accuracy of the ArduCopter code and show the accuracy of the IMU, so he decided to suspend bottles from his multi-copter to find out how it would cope with huge variations in weight and trim
Simple Machines: The Lever
The lever is one of the six classic simple machines. A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes a force’s direction or magnitude. The other five simple machines are the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge and the screw. Explaining simple machines to kids can be a fun learning experience, especially if you include some demonstrations in the lesson. Here’s how I built a lever for a demonstration of simple machines for my son’s 3rd grade clas
Freaklabs’ Akiba Visits Dharamsala, India
Expatriate hacker Chris “Akiba” Wang of Tokyo recently participated in a cool opportunity to deploy a sensor network in Dharamsala, India. I got an email from Marco at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. He’s part of UNESCO and we’re working together on a weather monitoring project. He was asking about the […]
Super Awesome Sylvia Goes to Washington
Super Awesome Sylvia is one of favorite young makers. Her passion for making is infectious. So it was a real thrill for us and makers everywhere when we learned she was selected to go to the White House Science Fair yesterday to show her stuff and meet the man in charge: President Obama.
How-To: DIY Bioprinter
Interesting Instructable from Dr. Patrik D’haeseleer, Harvard-trained computational biologist and denizen of Sunnyvale biotech hackerspace BioCurious. Bioprinting, which is basically 3D printing with living cells, has been much in the news lately, with breathless tales of fully 3D-printed living organs and replacement body parts. There is of course a fair bit of hype going on here, but also, at the core, a body of very interesting applied research.
Building a Mathematical Hanging Sculpture in an Hour
Sculptor George W. Hart recently designed and constructed two five-fold symmetrical sculptures with his “Crystal Flowers in Halls of Mirrors: Mathematics Meets Art and Architecture” class at Aalto University in Helsinki.
