Gord over at Gord’s Garage has been busy with home-based anodizing. It’s some amazing stuff he is doing. I sent him one of the rubber band gun assemblies, and he did an amazing job on it. In an incredible amount of detail, Gord has written up and photographed the whole process: http://gordsgarage.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/the-full-monty-part-1/ http://gordsgarage.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-full-monty-part-2/ In summary, [...]
Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
Plain to Pretty: Rubber Band Gun #6 Anodized
Posted in Engineering, Fun, Photography, Projects, Science, Technique, tagged Aluminum, Anodization, Anodized, Blue, Green, Machining, Mechanisms, Rubber Band Gun, Rubber Band Gun #6 on December 7, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Designing a better Lime Squeezer
Posted in Engineering, Fun, Interesting, Projects, Science, Technique, tagged Juicer, Lemon Juice, Lime, Lime Squeezer, Maple, Mechanisms, Party, Stainless Steel on July 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
From time to time we host a get-together or party where we feature fresh squeezed limeade as the main beverage. We have universally heard 5-star feedback from people who have had this simple but good drink. The problem is, squeezing enough limes for a party of 60+ people takes a lot of time (and limes). [...]
Two birds and an egg
Posted in Interesting, Nature, Photography, Science on June 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We’ve been watching this bird’s nest for some time in our shed which is in construction. The mother, would always fly around the clearing watching and waiting… Maybe having a panic attack? The little ones finally came. Sadly, the third egg never hatched. A few days later, the nest was empty (except the 1 egg). Little [...]
Ice and Salt is Very Cold
Posted in Fun, Interesting, Science, tagged Cold, Ice, Ice Cream, Melting, Salt, Salt + Ice, Science on June 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
We had a bowl of ice the other day for some reason. We also had some salt for some reason. Maybe we were making ice cream? In any event, we thought it would be neat to see how cold it actually is (because it feels really, REALLY cold). Salt + Ice = Cold Here are [...]
1,000 Sparklers — at once!
Posted in Fun, Interesting, Science, tagged Fireworks, Fun, Heat, Sparklers on June 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Sparklers are fun, right? Well, if you multiply that fun times 1,000 in a pile, then it gets really fun, and hot, and somewhat dangerous. From my observations, sparkelrs burn much faster when grouped together. If a normal sparker takes 60 seconds to burn, 1,000 of them might take 6 seconds to mostly burn. This [...]
Chemistry Photography
Posted in Fun, Interesting, Life, Photography, Projects, Science, tagged Black Powder, Charcoal, Chemistry, Combustion, Oxygen, Photography, Potassium Nitrate, Science, Sulphur on March 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
[Charcoal + Potassium Nitrate + Sulphur] when ground together in the right proportion, make … great photos! Here is a scene from chemistry class. First, we made charcoal by heating hardwood without oxygen. This produces a lot of smoke, but in the end, all that’s left in the test tube is charcoal sticks. Second, we ground the [...]
Arduino, Transistors, Motors, and LEDs
Posted in Engineering, Fun, Interesting, Open Source, Projects, Science, tagged Arduino, Bread Board, Diode, Electronics, Motor, Resistor, Transistor, Voltage on March 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Well, the fun is increasing with Arduino. We hooked up some circuitry which enables a transistor to switch a fairly large 12V load via a very small 5V digital pin on the Arduino board. This has been a great learning resource: http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/trancirc.htm Basically, we have 12V power going through a motor circuit (protected by a signal [...]
Melting table salt in a red hot spoon.
Posted in Fun, Interesting, Projects, Science, tagged Bunsen Burner, Fire, Hot, Melting, Red Hot, Salt on October 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
We were using a bunsen burner hooked up to a propane tank to heat a spoon, and the salt in the spoon, red hot in order to melt the salt. According to the wikipedia article on salt, the melting point is 1474 °F. See further comments after this picture… It took a while, but we did get [...]
