By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics What cool things have you made with magnets lately? Anything like the above dodecahedral construction? These geometric sculptures are the creations that resulted from Robert Hodgin playing with thousands of small magnetic spheres and cylinders. I especially like his geometric forms which remind me of Ernst Haeckel’s […]
Continue ReadingIn response to our post of the “BuckyBalls” magnetic beads, Mister Zed pointed us to this cool Bill Beaty demo of super magnetic beads and the behavior of their magnetic fields in loops and chains. Bill also shows how you can make a simple compass with the magnets. Lots of other cool info and vids […]
Continue ReadingHere’s a smart, easy, and fun reconfigurable marble course, made from PVC plumbing pipe, magnets, and a framed metal board. Kids can change the track shapes as they please. Sent to us by Jack McKee of Hands-on Books.
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Subscriber John Schuch writes: Threads on the MAKE forums often touch on hall effect sensors for measuring current, position, speed, etc. I just got this link in an email this morning and think it’s pretty cool. Gotta love free technical training. This is a sponsored tutorial on Digikey, sponsored by Honeywell, and promoting Honeywell’s line […]
Continue ReadingIn this ‘Sneaky Gadgets’ segment, Cy Tymony demonstrates some innovative and sometimes stealthy uses for magnets. Tired of zippers and buttons? Make like Cy, and insert magnets into your clothing as an E-Z fastener. This prolific Los Angeles-based author and Maker also offers other accessible projects that are great to try with young makers; check […]
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Bill Beaty documents his recipe for levitating neodymium magnets using two rotating coppers tubes. Note: The aptly named “Fantastically Dangerous Mechanical MagLev” could indeed seriously injure a person (you’ll notice Bill uses a clear plastic covering over the tubes to prevent the aforementioned nastiness) – While working on science museum exhibits in 1990 I came […]
Continue ReadingMore fun with maglev (and LN2). Magnetic Levitation [Thanks, Patti!] Related: Make stuff float, with the magnetic levitation kit Superconducting Maglev train models Diamagnetic levitation on a jar lid
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