Happy International Year of Chemistry! And this is also the 100th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Curie. To commemorate the occasion, the magazine, Chemical and Engineering News asked several chemists to contribute essays about the achievements of chemistry. Well worth reading is Naomi Pasachoff’s essay on Curie. Truly, has there ever been a scientist as courageous as Madam Curie?
Next week, we’ll be launching a series of 15 Weekend Projects, brought to you by RadioShack’s The Great Create. These step-by-step electronics how-tos will appear as a special section on Make: Projects, on a custom MAKE Facebook subpage, and we’ll be published a special weekly newsletter to support the program. The weekly Weekend Projects newsletter […]
It’s impressive to watch this timelapse video wherein Liu Xinying builds his own iPad clone from computer parts. It appears as though the tablet is running Windows XP, skinned to look like Mac OS X. Liu demos the tablet with web browsing, Google Earth, and a iBooks-like application.
Last year, we ran a project series and contest to design and build CoasterBots, simple autonomous, programmable robots built from dead CD media (aka “coasters”). It was a roaring success. We had a lot of participants and some truly inspired project entries. Jameco Electronics, the sponsor of the campaign, also put together an awesome parts bundle with us.
Does robot month have you itching to start building? Maker Bundle #1 from the Maker Shed will have you bot building in no time! This bundle includes the electronic parts to build four robots; Mousy the Junkbot, Trimet, Solarroller, and Beetlebot.
Remember Keepon, the simple, yet super-engaging little yellow dancing bot? His designers, the folks at BeatBots, have created his cousin Spazzi, the solenoid-powered dancebot, and Spazzi is one of the stars of our newest issue of MAKE, Volume 27, the Robots issue.
Old technology can be simply amazing. Centuries before Arduinos, servos, and electric motors, Japanese artisans came up with the mechanisms for the Karakuri Somersault Doll. The technology for this doll was reconstructed from original figurines by the kit builders at Gakken, so you can recreate one yourself! The kit includes everything you need to build the doll including the screwdriver.
