Luxury Ant Farm: The mANTsion. BackgroundI remember back when I had an ant farm as a kid and it used to be one heck of toy. I think I had an Uncle Milton ant farm, since until recently that was the only type of ant farm kids could buy. Uncle Milton did well for himself - he sold about 20 million of these things, so I am betting that a few other people out there had one too. There was the flowing green outline of the farm equipment above ground, the exciting tunnels that the ants created, and then of course the surprise and disappointment when it all came crashing down after a few weeks when the ants died.
But still, considering you were watching ants behind a piece of plastic, it was one wild ride. A few years ago NASA helped develop the Space Age Gel Ant Habitat and stirred things up by replacing the ants normal tunneling environment of sand or dirt with a gel that not only serves as their habitat, but that is also their source of food. Ant farm design and construction is pretty flexible. Materials. Synchronizing Fireflies. The algorithm What can be observed is that the fireflies start with random blinking. But as time goes by, they are able to slowly synchronize with their nearest neighbors.
And these neighbors are synchronizing themselfes with their neighbors and so on an so on. Until the whole tree or the whole valley blinks in the same cycle. And what is it good for? It is used to attract other specimen. One of the easiest algorithm to explain this behaviour goes like this: You have a value that holds the power to flash. While slowly charging with power the firefly is able to detect a flash of another firefly nearby. You can find more on this algorithm e.g. here:Firefly Synchronization Ad Hoc Networks The Hardware I decided to use my previous instructable (Programmable LED) as starting point. I just had to modify the program and the orientation of the LED and the LDR.
Van de Graaff Generator made from junk. This is instructions on how I built a Van de Graaff generator from junk lying about my house. (And I do mean junk.) Step 1: Parts Okay, the first thing you will want to do is gather all of the necessary parts. They include 1 pencil with ereaser, two dried out old click pen parts, a piece of 8in. long PVC pipe, 1 dead light bulb, 1ft long piece of 2 by 4, a elastic band, one metal paper clip, aluminum foil, see through tape, one small toy motor, 9 volt battery, and some junk wire. A good sense of humor and a few band-aids would come in handy too. Step 2: Part 1 The first step is to take your 1ft piece 2 by 4 and drill 1in. deep with a drill that is wide enough to snugly fit your PVC pipe.
Step 3: Step 2 Step 4: Step3 Next you drill two more holes into the PVC.The first hole should be drilled directly perpendicular too the bottom holes, and should only go through one side of the PVC.The second hole should go just above the top hole and should also be drilled through only one side of the PVC. United Nuclear - Scientific Supplies.