Science Experiments. A Philosophical Toy. By Richard Frazier For nearly a decade I have challenged my students (grades 7-9) to answer the question, "How did the Cartesian Diver get its name? " The students who have taken up this challenge have returned with little more than a description of the device and a conviction that the name is eponymous, that "Cartesian" is derived from the name of the French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650).
Never has a student found a documented link between the diver and Descartes although some science activity books suggest Descartes was the inventor (Vilenkin in Kikoin, 1980). We have recently made a more concerted effort to pursue the question and have posted queries by electronic and regular mail to science educators, to researchers at science museums, and to historians and philosophers of science. We have examined works about and by Descartes but have not yet uncovered any direct connection. " The diver is named after a great philosopher because it makes us think. " Air Surfing Kit Walkalong Glider.
This page is out of date! There's a new generation of designs that are easier to make here. Air Surfing Foam Walkalong Gliders Gallery of Feedback: people surfing foam gliders throughout the world! Buchwald's Bionics: Walkalong gliders that mimic living creatures! Until the foam is available again, step into air surfing with paper tumblewings. Back to sciencetoymaker home page COMING February 18th: NEW AIR SURFING For years science toy maker and his students have been developing air surfing (AKA walkalong gliding) whereby we mysteriously levitate gliders. It looks like magic the first time you see it! The problem is getting very thin foam. You don't have to wait, though. Part 1 Introduction to Walkalong Gliding and Why Foam? Part 2 Air Surfing Kit Overview and Build the Tumblewing This video shows the foam gliders you will make with the kit: 7 gliders, 4 different kinds.The second part shows you how to build and fly the simple, auto-gyrating Big Mouth tumblewing.
Infinity - Tech Demo Video 2010. Free electricity Video - 5min.com. I discovered a secret source of electricity that the power company and phone company do not want you to know about. It is also a great source of emergency electricity if your power ever goes out. All you need to tap into this secret power source is phone line. Every phone line is between 40 and 70 volts running through it, 24/7. In my case, it measure around 57 volts. After some bench testing, I discovered that all you need are 4 components to use this power source. My test subject is this LED light, I picked up at Wal-Mart. I begin assembling the small circuit, using the 2 resistors, the regulator, and the bridge rectifier. I also use the small hobby box to mount everything in. Then, I made an interface cable for the light to connect to the phone jack. In most cases, phone lines will stay up, eventhough the power goes out in your out.
So, for emergency, this is a great way to power small lamp. It is even design to let your phone operate normally. And, if your phone rings, (Phone Ringing) Instructables - Make, How To, and DIY. 7th Grader mimics Nature. 13 year old copies Nature to Improve Solar Performance Thirteen year old Aidan Dwyer was walking in the woods in Upstate New York in the winter and noticed a spiral pattern to tree branches.
Aidan realized the tree branches and leaves had a mathematical spiral pattern that could be shown as a fraction. After some research he also realized the mathematical fractions were the same numbers as the Fibonacci sequence. "On the oak tree, the Fibonacci fraction is 2/5, which means that the spiral takes five branches to spiral two times around the trunk to complete one pattern. Other trees with the Fibonacci leaf arrangement are the elm tree (1/2); the beech (1/3); the willow (3/8) and the almond tree (5/13) Aidan's backyard in Northport, NY. The 7th grader next wondered why nature used such a pattern? Aidan discovered that the Fibonacci pattern helps deciduous trees, in higher latitudes, efficiently track the Sun and collect the most sunlight even in the thickest forest, on the cloudiest days. Science Projects Experiments, Educational Toys & Science Toys.
Projects | Lego printer. This is the home of the "lego felt tip 110". A fully working lego printer with driver for Mac OSX. Many people have asked for documentation, source code, instructions etc, so here it is. If you're wanting to make your own lego printer be aware that most of what I have done could be much more easily achieved with a lego mindstorms kit. If however like me, you like making things from scratch for the shear hell of it, read on.
Original video if you don't know what I'm talking about... Master the Power: How to Shock People with Your Fingertips « Fear Of Lightning. The circuit schematic is represented in the (incredibly detailed) drawing below: The generator charges you up like a capacitor, then when you come in contact with a grounded object (person), the voltage is discharged through them. I found it was best to put the generator, battery and switch inside an old shoe, like so (the "stripped" wire is ground): Of course, to get it inside the shoe it's necessary to do a little drilling... Once everything is installed, take some tin foil and fasten it to the bottom of the shoe, in contact with the stripped ground wire mentioned above. Finally, punch a hole in the sole of the shoe and run the high voltage output from the negative ion generator through. And you're done! Be sure to check out some other cool high-voltage projects on The Blog, post to The Forum, or shoot me a message!
Science Experiments You Can Do At Home or School. Iterative Algorithmic Plastic Sculpture: Fimo Fractals - Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. One of our favorite shapes is the Sierpinski triangle. In one sense, a mere mathematical abstraction, on the other, a pattern that naturally emerges in real life from several different simple algorithms.
On paper, one can play the Chaos Game to generate the shape (or cheat and just use the java applet). You can also generate a Sierpinski triangle in what is perhaps a more obvious way: by exploiting its fractal self-similarity. Beginning with a single triangle, replace that triangle with three half-size copies arranged so that their outer border form a new triangle of the same size as the original. Then, replace each of those three triangles with three triangles half that size, and so forth. (Turns out of course, that the fractal pattern is due to the algorithm of shrinking and positioning the shapes, not due to the fact that the initial shape that we began with was a triangle– any plane figure can be used.)
Form the two clay colors into long triangular shapes. Lesson Plan for Making a Speaker Laboratory. ©1995 The Regents of the University of California by Regan Lum Introduction: A speaker is a device that converts an electronic signal into sound. The speaker you will build (see figure 1) consists of a Styrofoam or paper cup, a coil of wire, a permanent magnet, and a signal source. Figure 1 Purpose: In this laboratory, you will explore how a speaker works. Materials: 1 permanent magnet 2 feet of wire 1 pencil tape or glue 1 Styrofoam or paper cup 1 signal source (tape player) 1 plug with alligator clips for tape player Procedure: Assemble material as shown in figure 1. Leaving about 10 centimeters on the end, wrap the wire around a pencil to make a wire coil and tape or glue it to the bottom of the cup.
Conclusion Does the volume control on the tape player work on your speaker? Return to CEA Science Education Home Page. How To Make Hot Ice!!! Crazy. A CD spectrometer. A simple spectrometer can be built from a CD and a box. Cut a slit on one side of the box. Place the CD on the other side with about 60 degree angle. Look down into the openning on the box. The slit should not be too wide, otherwise the spectrum lines will be blurred. Let's look at the spectra of some common light sources. . (1) Solar spectrum is continuous with dark lines, i.e. the famous Fraunhofer lines. Interestingly the solar spectrum changes with the Sun's altitude! (2) Incandescent light is typical black body radiation, with continuous spectrum.
. (3) Fluorescent light has mercury gas emitting (mostly) ultraviolet light, which activates phosphor. . (4) The spectrum of high pressure sodium lights changes too! (5) Spectrum of white screen on a computer display. (6) Laptop display is different from a CRT display. (7) Red LED emits continuous spectrum in red. (8) Neon bulb has many red and orange discrete bright spectrum lines. (12) I took this photo before the total lunar eclipse of 2004 .
How to Extract DNA from Anything Living. First, you need to find something that contains DNA. Since DNA is the blueprint for life, everything living contains DNA. For this experiment, we like to use green split peas. But there are lots of other DNA sources too, such as: Spinach Chicken liver Strawberries Broccoli Certain sources of DNA should not be used, such as: Your family pet, Fido the dog Your little sister's big toe Bugs you caught in the yard Step 1: Blender Insanity! Put in a blender: 1/2 cup of split peas (100ml) 1/8 teaspoon table salt (less than 1ml) 1 cup cold water (200ml) Blend on high for 15 seconds. The blender separates the pea cells from each other, so you now have a really thin pea-cell soup.
Step 2: Soapy Peas Pour your thin pea-cell soup through a strainer into another container (like a measuring cup). Add 2 tablespoons liquid detergent (about 30ml) and swirl to mix. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. Pour the mixture into test tubes or other small glass containers, each about 1/3 full. Why am I adding detergent? Science Experiments - 5min.com.