Blowing Bubbles with a Straw

Creating giant, reusable bubbles at home is easy, and it's a fun project for children. Just dump a whole bottle of non-toxic Elmer's Clear School Glue into a bowl, add fine glitter and watercolors (or food coloring), and slowly mix together Sta-Flo Liquid Starch to form a plia ...more

When he's not taking orbital videos of Earth's auroras, NASA Astronaut Don Pettit is experimenting with water in zero gravity. He's already shown us how water droplets can orbit around knitting needles in a microgravity environment. Now he's playing with water again, this time ...more

Showcased at Mediamatic, the "Untitled Sock Project" is a knitting machine hack by Luís Brandaõ, Fábio Costa, Sean Follmer, and Pol Pla: "By blowing into straws, visitors contribute to the creation of a knitted sock. Depending on how hard they blow and which straw they blow i ...more

Type: Digital, Theme Theme: Kid of the Year Categories: Theme Deadline: Final submission deadline: January 21, 2012 9:00 p.m. CT Weekly submission deadline: Week ends on Saturdays, 9:00 p.m. CT, opens for the following week on Saturday at 9:01 p.m. CT Weekly Community Vot ...more

Since the invention of the mechanical clock, enclosure of the commons, and proletarianization of labor, the alarm clock has been the bane of our existence. While not actually evil, it does represent the constant and uncompromising glare of our owners shaking a patronizing fing ...more

To prepare for the prank eat some dairy products or beans. Anything that will make you fart. Invite over a group of friends to have some drinks. Have someone be the designated camrea man. This prank is the most funniest when you pick the person the with the worst temper of t ...more

And by hottest, I mean most popular. These ladies have got skills. I want to be as good as them, and I've already begun my research. If you're also interested in joining the ranks of hottest bubble gum blowers, go here for some beginners tips. The lineup: Susan Montgomery W ...more

It's always a good idea to have a pack of mints on hand, especially right after a cup of coffee or a lunch made with loads of garlic. Whether you're going on a date, to the dentist, or to an interview, bad breath is a major faux pas and totally avoidable. Simply pop a mint! Bu ...more

There are many, many home remedies out there for relieving itchy mosquito bites. Everything from mud to banana peels and basil leaves to Alka-Seltzer tablets can help curb the itch. But before you even have to resort to any of those methods, you should be thinking about preven ...more

There's no reason to wait for Halloween to play with dry ice. It definitely creates a creepy fog-like effect when you add a little water to it, but there are some other really cool things you can do wit dry ice. Here are just 5 non-Halloween ways to use dry ice for tricks or p ...more

If you're going to build yourself a water gun to cool down this summer, or maybe just a useful water pump, you'll need some check valves. However, the most expensive parts of a water pump or DIY super soaker are usually the check valves. So, let's make some from scratch for as ...more

These bubbles are incredible. The key to their stable state is in the homemade bubble recipe. This ain't no kid's play anymore. These bubbles are industrial powered, made with surgical lubricants and glycerine. They're virtually unpoppable! Make giant soap bubbles.

Defy logic and gravity with this quick magic-science illusion. All you need is lighter fluid, a bowl and some bubble solution. The butane gas from the lighter sinks to the bottom of the bowl, below the oxygen. The bubbles then float in the oxygen atop the heavy butane creatin ...more

We have no control on the weather yet it is a part of our lives which influence what we do, what we eat, what we wear and many times where we live. How did people predict the weather before there was the Internet, television, radio or the weatherperson with all of their gadget ...more

Bubble-smith Sterling Johnson recently took his voluminous bubble art to the shores of Stinson Beach, California. Presented in slow motion, the bubbles resemble spectral whales. Pint-sized Ahabs follow in pursuit. The effect is extraordinarily pacifying. Video by Mark Day: Th ...more

Here are just a few little random tips that may help you while making balloon animals for fun and profit. This list is only a collection of random balloon tips and tricks that I've come up with on the fly tonight. If you have any other suggestions or questions, please feel fre ...more

If you want to blow your mind, check out this amazing new tumblr blog devoted to abstract moving stills from classic films. Here is the main site. You gotta see them moving to believe it. Some of my favorites. Taxi Driver Lost Highway Straw Dogs The Shinning

It's the newest craze to hit the web and it's called "tarp surfing". Somehow it is out and out ingenious. Simple and infectiously fun (for some reason, the resourceful silliness of it is right on par with CD-R bubble blowing). I'm gathering up a skateboard, friend, tarp... le ...more

Love bubbles but hate the toil and trouble of using your own lungs to blow them? Allow us to introduce Bubblebot, the latest Arduino-powered toy to attain celebrity status on Instructables. It's not an easy project by any means—even the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur has fewer steps. ...more

It won't be much trouble getting a decent police sketch if Andrew Salomone decides to knock off a liquor store. Salomone used the Brother knitting machine hack shown below: "The balaclava is knit from cotton yarn and the design is from a bitmap file, in which pictures of my ...more

As Theo Gray of Gray Matter demonstrates below, contrary to what the ads may say, diamonds CAN expire. Especially when attacked with a blow torch and liquid nitrogen. Gray says: "Diamonds are neither rare nor intrinsically valuable nor uniquely romantic. Those are ideas inven ...more

Fans of Doctor Who know that the sonic screwdriver is the ultimate tool. It can unlock doors, turn on lights, detect life forms, solder wires, and sabotage weapons. Presumably, the sonic screwdriver creates sonic vibrations to achieve whatever the doctor wants by vibrating th ...more

Hobby rockets are tons of fun. Vicarious astronaut adventures abound with every launch. What if you want to be closer to the action though? What if you want to feel what it's like to be in a rocket at takeoff? With the discovery of tiny keychain cameras, we have technology sma ...more

There's a time in everyone's life when they need to become immortalized and reprographed in a full-blown comic spread, complete with halftone dots and speech bubbles—or squares, if you're a square. With our favorite program Photoshop, you can quickly turn any hyperbolic celebr ...more

Keanu Reeves is a really good actor and I'm not even kidding Pity the fate of the blank-faced man or: Why you need to rewatch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Somewhere along the line, around about the time Pacino, De Niro, Brando and Hoffman and Hackman and Eastwood were int ...more

If you're like me, you were disappointed when NASA cut their human space flight program. No longer could children and adults in dead-end jobs dream of someday walking on the surface of the Moon or drinking floating globules of water through a straw. Homo sapiens as a species a ...more

Sometimes the simplest things yield the most fun results. This clever trick creates long, condom-esque plastic bubbles. This How-To is very simple: Grab the plastic disk that comes with your blank CD or DVD spindle or scratch the aluminum off a real disc. Heat an area of it w ...more

Few things in life are as exciting and magical as fire. And setting things on fire while cooking? Well, now you're speaking my language. I'm not talking about grilling, though I do love some outdoor cooking. No, I'm talking about the most badass trick in any cook's arsenal: th ...more

The internet was blowing up recently over this mind-blowing, mouth-watering video of a woman making a cake decoration out of… wait for it… chocolate bubble wrap. Yes, that's right: she turned the ubiquitous packing material into the mold for an absolutely gorgeous cake embelli ...more

Sandwich bags are great and all—but what should you do with them after you are done eating your sandwich? Thankfully, these waterproof and durable bags do not need to add to the landfill right away; you can reuse sandwich bags for a variety of uses ranging from DIY gloves for ...more