OMG! If I’d found this gem glowing underneath the aluminum Christmas tree when I was a kid, I’d have sprained something in my geekly excitement. I think I’d sprain something now… my wallet. This kit sold for a rather steep-at-the-time $50 and goes for 100 times that now. But I’d still be tempted. I think […]
[pic of David Brooks’ photometer kit] In following up on his discussion, on the last episode on Make: Talk, of building Sun Photometers and measuring total column water vapor, Forrest Mims sent me the following info: The instrument that measures total column water vapor is a sun photometer with LEDs that detect at 940 nm […]
Happy Birthday Al! On this day, in the year 1879, a person was born whose name would become synonymous with our popular concept of genius. When we take a closer look at Albert Einstein’s contributions to science, it’s plain to see why. Within a single year, working at a Swiss patent office, Einstein wrote a […]
Today is the birthday of Joseph Priestley, the 18th century scientist, teacher, and political wonk who had a tremendous impact on the worlds of science and politics. He is credited with the discovery of oxygen (isolating it in its gaseous state). Priestley has been the subject of two “recent” books, The Lunar Men (actually five […]
The folks at Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose were our most gracious hosts for the Maker Faire Auditions on Sunday. On April 25th, the museum will play host to their 22nd annual Tech Challenge, an annual team design contest for budding engineers in grades 5 – 12. MAKE is proud to be a […]
People sometimes ask us what’s the big deal with the Maker’s Notebook. Why should they care about a book largely filled with blank pages? Well, obviously we think there are all sorts of reasons to care. We spent a lot of time designing a book optimized for makers. It’s hard-bound, sturdy, contains high-quality engineering graph […]
Mekonik used an Arduino board, solenoid coil, hall effect sensor, and some clever coding to hold a permanent magnet in mid-air – The device uses a small Hall effect sensor (SS19 from Honeywell, available for $0.50 from AllElectronics) to sense the field of the permanent magnet and uses that information to modulate the magnetic field […]
