Following an accident that damaged some of his written lab notes, biologist and photographer Colin Purrington undertook to choose his next laboratory writing instrument more scientifically. The test set included 20 pens and 1 pencil. As a brand, the Japanese-made Sakura Gelly Roll pens, like those shown here, stand out for fade- and bleed-resistance under the tested conditions.
Fascinating video from Nyle Steiner, who reports on his experiments with simple homemade memristors made from what are, probably, Al-CuS-Cu and Al-PbS-Pb junctions. He describes the observations that led him to experiment with these systems and the results of his experiments, and then wraps up by drawing out a simple memristor demonstration circuit and demonstrating its operation on-camera.
YouTuber HouseholdHacker shows just how simple a glycerin-based fog machine really is, in principle, and how easy is it is to improvise a pretty fair substitute with some food-grade glycerin, a candle, and a couple other odds ‘n’ ends.
Collin Purrington offers some great tips on the necessity of maintaining a laboratory notebook. While directed mainly at scientists, I could see it applying to anyone interested in Open Source Hardware development or simply working on difficult, long-term projects. [Via @cenmag] In the Maker Shed: Pick up The Maker’s Notebook ($19.99) for all your big […]
If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with aluminum anodizing but were put off by the conventional requirement for concentrated sulfuric acid, you will be very interested to read of Ken’s successes with an alternate process using the acidic sodium salt of sulfuric acid. This salt, sodium bisulfate (NaHSO4) is much safer to transport, handle, and dispose of than the strong acid, and appears to give anodizing results that are just as good or better.
This microscope is a project by Sacha De’Angeli of ChemHacker. STM system is a non-optical, high-resolution, microscopy technique that is often used to obtain images of a conductive surface at the atomic scale. A sharp metal tip is placed only a few nano-meters from surface, a current is applied between the two (Tunneling Current). The […]
Materials researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign have developed a highly conductive silver ink. In this video, Analisa Russo, a graduate student in the research group of Professor Jennifer Lewis shows exactly how to make this amazing ink, which could be used for a wide variety of hobby projects and in advanced electronics hardware. […]
