Those who follow Jeri’s mad-scientist-like curiosity and sci-tech explorations in her many YouTube vids know that she’s recently been hot to create electroluminescence. In this vid, she tries to make her own phoshor. It didn’t quite work out, but she explains the process and then shows something cool that she did discover, triboluminescence, the optical […]
Just last week we mentioned the OpenPCR project and included a link to their Kickstarter page. Throughout the week support for the project poured in from all over the Internet and eventually the project surpassed their initial target. Then on Friday the project hit a snag. The heated lid that warms the top of the tubes kept burning out. That’s when Tito Jankowski decided to post a question soliciting feedback on O’Reilly Answers.
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics A lathe is used to turn wood into baseball bats, spindles, and other shapes with rotational symmetry. It can also be applied to making many types of mathematical models. Bob Rollings made this construction from spindles that form the edges of an icosahedron inside of a dodecahedron. […]
MAKE’s science and chemistry author, Robert Bruce Thompson, has a new installment of his video series The Home Scientist, on acquiring chemicals for your home lab. This video is a nice companion to Bob’s piece in the Make: Science Room on the same subject: Chemicals on the cheap. See Bob’s YouTube channel for all of […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics With paper and scissors and patience, you can make an amazing variety of mathematical forms. The paper sculpture below consists of twenty identical components that form a complex linkage. They lock together without glue in a very symmetric arrangement. If you want to try this, the template […]
Every once in a while, something gets submitted to us that resonates, tickles, informs, and/or inspires on a really deep, satisfying level. This is one of those items. Everything about it. The project itself, these super-cool origami airplanes, made from phonebook paper, the obvious dedication of the teacher who made this video and teaches his […]
By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics Beading is a traditional craft which recently has been applied to make interesting mathematical models. Here are some impressive examples by Bih-Yaw Jin, starting with a beaded Mobius strip. A beaded helical surface twists through space like a cork screw. All five Platonic solids are shown here, […]
