Want to make your own sexy (or not) Tron costume like designer Syuzi's? All you need is a black body suit and some electroluminescent wire. The bodysuit is easy, but as for the electroluminescent wire, you'll need Adafruit for that: "EL Wire, also known as Electroluminescent ...more
Keeping apples or avocados from browning after being cut is impossible; within minutes of being exposed to air, these fruits (yes, avocado is a fruit) begin to brown. No matter what you try—adding lemon juice, keeping the pits in place, immediately sealing the produce in an ai ...more
When there's no more pickles in the pickle jar, most of you probably dump the remaining brine down the drain and recycle the bottle. While recycling is commendable, throwing out good pickle "juice" is not. You can use that leftover liquid in cocktails, bread, and potato salad ...more
F for FAKE. This video has been labeled a "Faux-To". Commonly contested as bogus science, we believe this video to be a hoax. What's your opinion? Comment below. Using a dowel, candle, plastic toy boat and copper wire you can create a steam powered boat that runs off of water.
This two part video show you how to remove an old shower valve, preparation and installation of a new shower valve. Also, you'll see how to clean, cut and connect copper plumbing pipes. Don't forget to watch part two and always make sure to shut off the water main first! Part ...more
With the microwave oven transformer (M.O.T.) salvaged in a previous project, a simple electrical circuit can be rigged to get high voltage arcs to fly outward and upward along a "V" shaped spark gap. You can look, but don't touch! These arcs of plasma are lethal enough to kil ...more
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) drive over eight million people to seek medical attention every year. Almost all — as many as 90% — of those infections are caused by Escherichia coli. Copper can kill bacteria, but E. coli has found a way to capture the copper, preventing its a ...more
Budget Hack's cheap Wifi range extender works off of the age old concept of adding tin foil to your TV's rabbit ears. The materials are cheap, and the project is relatively easy (if you're willing to pick up some soldering skills). You Will Need: Two milo tins or similar F- ...more
Pickles come in all shapes, sizes, and names (gherkins in the UK, cornichons in France). There are even crazy flavors such as koolickles—dill pickles soaked in a mixture of Kool-Aid and brine, an American South favorite. Whatever sort of pickle tickles your fancy, you can coun ...more
There's no doubt you've heard the old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." The phrase was penned in an obituary to a dwarf actor in 1915 by an anarchist named Elbert Hubbard, who lost his life five months later aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed by ...more
In a previous project, I showed how to build an electrical Jacob's ladder using an old microwave oven transformer (MOT). In this project, I modified the secondary coil on the MOT, which converts it from a high voltage/low current device into a low voltage/high current metal me ...more
Cleanliness is next to godliness. My interpretation of that age-old adage means that keeping your house clean is just as un-fun and boring as being a goody two shoes. That's why they call things like laundry and doing dishes "chores," I assume. Yuck. Lucky for you, though, we ...more
The DIY industry is booming, despite the desperate blackmailing of society by finance capitalists. Companies like Adafruit and Makerbot are grossing well over a million dollars a year, and Evil Mad Science Laboratories just recently dedicated themselves to running a full-time ...more
Follow this video to learn how to use copper push-fit fittings to connect piping. 1. Sometimes we connect pipes by means of push-fit fittings which are not very appealing to look at since they are of a different color and material and so do not match with the pipe. However a g ...more
Science-fiction writer Jules Verne predicted many scientific breakthroughs, including the moon landing, tasers, and nuclear submarines. In his 1874 book The Mysterious Island, Verne writes: I believe that water will one day be employed as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen which ...more
What's a cataplana? It's a delicious Portuguese dish and the cookware it's made in, shaped like a clam. So make sure you have a cataplana before you try out this recipe for Portuguese cataplana. It's super tasty, with lisbon sauce, stew, and seafood! Traditionally, a copper c ...more
If you've decided to forgo the super heroes and television characters and go medieval this year for Halloween, David J. Guyton has just the thing to take your costume over the top. To promote his new book, he built this awesome gauntlet armor—and made a step-by-step tutorial. ...more
Check out this kitchen table science experiment on how to make electricity from copper, zinc and water. You can make your own battery to power a small LED light from just nails, copper wire and water. You will need copper wire, zinc (in the form of galvanized nails), a multim ...more
With just two microcontrollers soldered together, you can inject keystrokes into a computer from a smartphone. After building and programming the device, you plug it into a desktop or laptop, access it over a smartphone, and inject keystrokes as you would with a USB Rubber Duc ...more
What Is Ferrofluid? Ferrofluid is a black, solvent-based liquid, that, in the presence of a magnetic field, becomes strongly magnetized. The fluid is made up of nanomagnetic particles coated with an "anti-stick" or surfactant compound, suspended in a "carrier", commonly an or ...more
I know people who hate mayonnaise. I know people who detest ketchup. But I know almost no one that hates mustard, and that's because mustard has a complexity and depth that bland mayo and ketchup do not. Mustard runs the gamut from smooth and subtle to sharp and spicy, especia ...more
This video will show you how to make a lemon battery. You use a copper penny and a zinc coated nail to create a circuit.
Valentine's Day is almost here, and if you're like me, you're scurrying to do something special for your mate. The standard chocolates and flowers just isn't cutting it anymore, and you can only make so many homemade cards before it becomes banal and meaningless. So, what can ...more
What's a penny worth these days? Not much. But could there be some free energy hidden inside your spare pennies? You'd be surprised! See how I hack together stacks of pennies into makeshift batteries that can drive small-current devices like LEDs and calculators. Video: . You' ...more
Make an antigravity toy with just some magnets, a pyrex bowl, coper wire, a playing card and some aluminium foil. This is really cool! You can even interact with the flying card when the bowl is shut! Put 3 magnets somewhere, making a circle,over them, place a bowl, then wrap ...more
Your iPhone is full of features, many of which you might not even know about yet. Still, Apple keeps adding feature after feature with each new iOS update, and iOS 14.5 is no exception. The latest iOS version adds at least 69 features for your iPhone that you should be happy a ...more
Step aside, ginger ale; ginger beer is here, and it's delicious. Ginger beer is made by fermenting a combination of ginger simple syrup, yeast, and water, which gives it its robust flavor and sparkling quality. It's extremely simple to make, but you do have to wait a bit for ...more
Arachnophilia and technosexuals rejoice. This whimsical, skittering robot takes only 5 minutes of tinkering. This simple toy is made possible with a bit of solder, AAA battery, copper wire and an old mobile phone's vibrating motor. Like the EvilMadScientist's Bristlebot, this ...more
You can do a lot more with playing cards than you'd think, like turn them into gift boxes, fling them like throwing stars, and make them levitate or disappear. You can even make them recharge your batteries. Instructables user Shawn Frayne was sick of having a bunch of dead ba ...more
Did you know that the average cost to make a penny is about 2.4 cents?!? That's why the Obama administration asked Congress earlier this year for permission to change the metals in the penny, hoping to get the cost back down where it makes sense. But do we even need these coi ...more
Do you listen to a lot of music on your smartphone or MP3 player? Ever wished the built-in speaker was louder? You're in luck, because this simple amplifier can increase your volume by 14 decibels and make your device look totally steampunk while you're at it. What You'll Need ...more
Turn yourself into an electromagnetism maestro with one of the simplest motors known to man—the homopolar motor. It's the "simplest motor" because of its absent polarity change. The magnetic field does not change the direction or strength. It consists of only three parts; copp ...more
Save tons of money by building your own LED pen that works with a multitouch smart board / whiteboard. You'll also need a WiiMote (Wii Remote) to use in conjunction with your homemade LED pens that you'll be making in this video. To get started with this awesome project, you'l ...more
Simple yet effective, capacitors come in a dizzying array of forms and materials, vital to so many circuits for storage, timing, and filtration - the mighty capacitor! In this installment of the MAKE presents series, Collin Cunningham explains - how to build a Leyden jar, how ...more
I love making my own printed circuit boards. It really gives a professional look to a finished project, and having all the design files means I can whip up another batch whenever I need to. However, when I need to make, say, three thousand swarmbots or fill an order for a doze ...more
This video demonstrates the relationship between electricity and magnetism and shows how to construct an electromagnet using a 4 inch iron nail, 5 meters of copper wire and a 1.5 volt AA battery. Electromagnetism was discovered by the Danish scientist Oersted. Electromagnetism ...more
In this video you will learn how to tighten radiator valves using a spanner and water pump pliers. If you find that your radiator valves are leaking, follow these simple steps to remedy the situation: If you take a look at your lock shield valve, you may see signs that it has ...more
One of the most famous and repeated chemistry experiments involves money. Some would say this is more of a trick than an experiment, but you can be the judge of that. No one can just turn pennies into silver or gold coins, but someone with a few chemicals can. So, if you want ...more
If you're lucky enough to have a dishwasher, you probably use that sucker to clean everything (minus your good cooking knives), and maybe even to cook your food, too. However, dishwashers are not without their faults. Dishes can still come out spotty and even with chunks of fo ...more
As far as the world of consumer electronics goes, it doesn't get much greener than recycling solar panels. In this video tutorial, you'll learn how to solder together broken solar panels, giving them new life as a functional AA battery charger, which produces about 6 volts in ...more
In this video tutorial the instructor talks about Hydrochloric acid (HCL) and how it reacts to a few metals. To try this out take 30 ml of concentrated hydrochloric acid in a beaker. You need to employ caution while handling acids, especially if you use strong ones. Now you ca ...more
Motors. The word screams of complexity. They're everywhere and in everything, from car engines to airplanes to toys and electric wristwatches. But sometimes the most complex things can be really simple, as in the case of the homopolar motor, where the main point is a magnetic ...more
Apple's latest big update to iOS 14 has a lot to be excited about. While iOS 14.2 had some fun new features, such as new emoji and wallpapers, People Detection in Magnifier, and a Shazam control, iOS 14.3 brings on the heat. There are new Apple services and products that are s ...more
Last time, I showed how to start putting together an AC arc welder from scavenged microwave parts, focusing on the transformer modifications. Now, I'll show you how to finish up your DIY stick welding machine by fixing up the electrical system and performing the finishing touc ...more
It seems contrary to what you instinctually believe is true, but you can actually mix two modes of art - coloring pencils and metal from jewelry making - and fuse them into one work of jewelry. Follow along, start to finish, as Art Jewelry magazine associate editor Jill L. Er ...more
First, cut a plastic bottle down the middle the long way. Next, put a little candle in one of the halves. Then, using 1/8 inch copper tubing, make the engine by bending the middle of the tubing around a nail a few times, then removing the nail. Use the nail to poke two holes i ...more
Samsung hopes to make a splash with the new Galaxy Note 9 to make up for the underwhelming sales of its signature Galaxy S9 series. This flagship is a radical departure from its predecessors — it's now optimized for gaming and paired with the most advanced S Pen stylus to date ...more
Like a lemon, a potato can produce electricity. This science experiment was prepared by Ebtisam Al Anzoor and demonstrated by Mustafa Daif. The electricity is proven using an analog micro ameter. The positive is copper from a penny or copper coin while the negative is a galava ...more
Getting a new phone is like getting a pair of new socks—you can't wait to try them on and when you do, they feel totally awesome. Maybe that's just me, but for many customers that have already received their highly anticipated iPhone 5 in the mail, awesome is definitely not th ...more
Watch this science video tutorial from Nurd Rage on how to make copper sulfate from copper and sulfuric acid in three ways. They show you how to make copper sulfate from copper and sulfuric acid using two chemical methods and one electrochemical method. Copper does not direct ...more
Turn pennies from copper to silver then to gold with a few household chemicals.
Before working on any circuit in your house, make sure you turn the light off at the circuit breaker and then test it at the switch. Use 14-2 wire which has two insulated wires, a white and a black, and a bare copper wire which is used for grounding. First you run a 14-2 wire ...more
Watch this video to check out how to make a home made rabbit snare. If you can't find stainless steel wire, brass or copper will work just as well. Make sure your string is very strong. Consider using a braided twine that is treated with a non-slip coating to prevent knot slip ...more
The trick in the video is that the magnets are made of a conducting material and they connect the battery terminals to the copper wire, so the battery, magnets and copper wire make a circuit that generates a magnet field just in the vicinity of the battery. The geometry means ...more
In this article, I'll show you how to create a simple yet accurate demonstration of the "rising ionized gas" principle. In other words, a transformer, two metal prongs and lots of evil laughter. Remember those large "towers" in the background of Frankenstein movies with a "lig ...more
We Harry Potter fans all remember Hogwarts students pulling Mandrake Roots in the greenhouses in Chamber of Secrets. Well, in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, we now have an opportunity to work in our own Greenhouses, as well as dine inside Inns scattered throughout the map. Let's ...more
Tim Carter of Ask the Builder demonstrates how to flare the end of soft copper tubing to produces leak-proof joints. Tim explains how soft copper can be bent without kinking. Great video with minimal use of tools.
Being able to sleep deeply and fully is one of the foundations for real health. When you go without it, you feel subhuman and incapable of dealing with the world—just ask a student who's had to pull an all-nighter or the parents of a newborn. In fact, many studies have shown t ...more
Torus knots are beautiful knots formed by wrapping a line around a torus and tying the ends together to form a loop. The resulting knot has a star-like appearance when viewed from above. The 36 examples with the least number of crossings can be seen at the Knot Atlas's page on ...more
If you're a Breaking Bad junkie who can't wait for the next episode, satisfy your craving with a little at-home chemistry and make some blue DIY smash-glow crystals! No, this is not Walter White's so-called "Big Sky" or even the subpar cringe-worthy product of his competitors. ...more