How To : Start a fire with a battery
Strike a fire with a battery. "Sticks and stone may brake your bones, but they will take forever to start a fire!" This is a good video if you need to survive in the wild by creating a fire.
Strike a fire with a battery. "Sticks and stone may brake your bones, but they will take forever to start a fire!" This is a good video if you need to survive in the wild by creating a fire.
Check out this how-to video to start a fire using an AA battery and a staple. You can do this while listening to the classical guitar piece, "Malaguena" if you feel like it. It could save your life! With your battery: start by cutting the plastic away from the negative termina ...more
Creator Funditor claims right off the bat that this survival tip could save your life. We think that's slightly dramatic, but it shouldn't take away from his video's utility. The strategy is simple: use the electric charge of the battery and the conductivity of the staple to ...more
What happens when you need to build a fire, but you forgot your matches and lighter? What if you don't know the fire-plow method, the bow and drill method, or even the flint and steel method (not that you would have flint, because you forgot your lighter)? Watch this survival ...more
Lost in the wilderness? Did you forget your emergency personal beacon (EPERB)? Learn from the BBC how to start a signal fire using your car battery and a piece of wire wool. Let's just hope you have a car . . .
If you're out in the wilderness at night and it's starting to get chilly, you sure as hell better know how to make yourself a campfire. But let's just say you forgot your matches and don't feel like rubbing two sticks of wood together hoping to create a spark. If you have a 9 ...more
This video tutorial will show you a detailed way to make fire with steel wool and a battery. This is a great way to start fires on camping trips or for emergency situations. Just makes sure you carry some steel wool and a 9V battery on you at all times, or maybe just in your r ...more
Forget the sticks and drop the matches, Joe Kelley shows you the easiest way to start a fire in the woods: steel wool and a battery. All you need to do is touch the volt battery to the steel wool. Watch this video camping tutorial and learn how to start a fire with steel wool ...more
Build a fire without matches or a lighter so you wont freeze to death or attract predators in the wild. The finer the steel wool, the better. Most batteries will work but 9 volt batteries are the easiest.
Learn how to make a magical looking fire with steel wool and a 9 volt battery.
This video shows the viewer how to start a fire using a steel wool and a 9 volt battery. This is done by first selecting a charge battery and clean steel wool. The gently rub the battery terminals across the steel wool and blow gently. The wool should glow and become superheat ...more
Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to make a light a toothpick on fire with just a few household items. The materials you will need for this process are a roll of tape, two AA batteries, any kind of headphone jack, and any type of aerosol spray. To start thi ...more
Fire. It’s everywhere— always has been. From the Ordovician Period where the first fossil record of fire appears to the present day everyday uses of the Holocene. Today, we abundantly create flames (intentionally or unintentionally) in power plants, extractive metallurgy, i ...more
Once you've reached an age where sparklers are no longer fun, it's time to upgrade to science and steel wool. It may be basic chemistry, but as you'll see in the video, simplicity can amaze more than complexity, as well as create some really impressive fireworks that are perfe ...more
It's that time a year when winter storms begin causing havoc across the United States, and when "rotating outages" are common to help sustain the electrical grid during intense cold periods. That means pretty much anybody with snow and ice in their backyard can succumb to powe ...more
You're lost. You're cold, thirsty— you're hungry. What if you're not much of a hunter? Maybe you're a gatherer. So, then you'll eat plants. But what if you eat something poisonous? What if you're allergic to it? Okay, so not many people will find themselves in a situati ...more
How to make sparks without matches or a lighter If you camp a lot there is a good trick for making sparks without matches or a lighter. The biggest key to making a fire is to be able to do it when stuff is damp and wet. Lighting a fire in damp circumstances can be hard. You ca ...more
Triboluminescence is the quality that makes a substance emit light when you crush, smash, hit, or otherwise break it's molecular bonds. If you want some triboluminescent (smash-glow) crystals, watch this video to learn how to make some out of a battery, glowpaint, and fire.
I am writing this quick post in response to the recent earthquakes and tsunamis that are affecting Japan. As soon as the news broke, and we began to hear of tsunami warning for our area, I immediately realized how under prepared I was for a natural disaster. The thing that dro ...more
Millions of laptop batteries have been recalled because of the risk of FIRE. Get some tips from CNET to learn how to keep your laptop battery safe and secure. First, make sure your battery hasn't already been recalled. Second, don't leave the laptop constantly charging because ...more
Systm is the Do-It-Yourself show designed for the common geek who wants to quickly and easily learn how to dive into the latest and hottest tech projects. They will help you avoid pitfalls and get your project up and running fast. In this DIY episode, see how to safely wire an ...more
I like to grow vegetables all year round, and I couldn't afford the big gas bulbs, or the power to run them. The big gas bulbs: can explode can burn you and your plants cost upwards of $50 a month to operate raise the temperature in your home, causing the air conditioning to ...more
Taking apart batteries is one of those things that every adult you've ever known has warned you against. Today, we break the taboo and dive into a lithium battery. Lithium has some pretty cool properties—it burns instantly in water and glows blindly bright under flame. And wit ...more
Ever wanted to know how to make a fire with your cell phone? All you need is a cell phone, a brillo pad, and material for tinder. First take the battery out of your phone and find the positive and negative contacts on the bottom of it. Next tear off a chunk of the brillo pad, ...more
In this article, I'll show you how to build a coil gun. A coil gun is a device that fires magnetic projectiles at high velocities, using electricity. Coil guns require no explosive propellant, therefor can be fired an infinite amount of time, providing that there is ammunition ...more
This video will show you an all-new fire starting idea that deals with steel wool and your flashlight batteries.
Rockets are lots of fun when you are launching them. However, finding them can be an arduous if not maddening task. Fancy space rockets have lots of tracking equipment to make touchdowns as simple as pie. Today, we look at embedding LEDs into your hobby rocket for easy night f ...more
Paintballing is a very popular sport. A paintball gun, actually called a paintball marker is demonstrated and talked about in this video by Michael Glatzer. The marker in the video is bright and flashy so that it does not look like a regular firearm. Michael will be able to us ...more
In this video you will learn how to mod your Xbox 360 so that it will have rapid fire. He notes that the control he uses is a TP3 controller, you can tell if you have a TP3 controller by opening up you battery pack and on the bottom left on the micro chip it says TP3. He doesn ...more
Tesla coils are totally insane, yet undeniably captivating. And they can be used for many things, from electric painting to dueling musical battles. But one trigger happy fellow has a different use for Tesla's lightning shooting coil. A weapon. After being inspired by the ste ...more
WonderHowTo favorite NurdRage once again triggers the inner mad scientist in all of us (well, all of us WonderHowTo-ians at least). Below, watch what happens when steel wool- found in every common household Brillo Pad- is lit on fire. "Normally we do not think of iron as bein ...more
This video shows us how to make quick and cheap ematches from Christmas Lights. • First we need to break the top of the Christmas bulb tubes without damaging the filament inside. • You can use a file for this procedure. Rub the tip of the bulb on the edge of the file till it ...more
Whether your plane made a crash landing or your ship got lost on a three-hour tour, now you're stranded on a remote island. Here's how to get help. You Will Need * A freshwater source * Some dry sticks * Rocks and leaves * Clothing * A mirror or a reflective object * Cell pho ...more
Now that everyone has an Android or iPhone in their pocket, there's no excuse for being late to an appointment or job interview. Thanks to that GPS receiver in your smartphone, navigating your way through city streets and highways is a cinch, in or outside of your vehicle. But ...more
In this article, I'll show you how to make a high-powered, long-range, air-powered rocket gun. This launcher is based on a sprinkler valve, a modified propane tank, and a few other components. Though not hard to make, this device is VERY dangerous! The rocket can seriously har ...more
Snapseed is a highly regarded and award-winning photo-editing app for iOS devices. Originating out of image manipulation specialist Nik Software in San Diego, Snapseed is Apple’s iPad App of the Year and, after using it for the purposes of this review, I believe it points to t ...more
If you're like me, you were always jealous of the kids with rich parents who got to ride around in their own Power Wheels cars. Now that I am tall enough to sell my body and time, I find myself attaining childhood dreams like buying my own Power Wheels car. I would not have ch ...more
I have an absolutely wonderful time making projects and writing articles for all of you mad scientists! Today, I will bring you behind the scenes for a look at the workbench, tools, and software that make the Mad Science World possible. Above is my beautiful workbench! My who ...more
In this how-to video, some children demonstrate one of the techniques for starting a fire when you don't have a lighter, matches, lighter fluid, or anything like that. Here we see how to start a fire using just a 9 volt battery and some steel wool. TO start a fire using just a ...more
Fireworks are the best part about the Fourth of July and other celebrations, but they can easily cause accidental injuries. It's both safer and more fun to set them off remotely, so we'll hack some standard fireworks with nichrome wire, a relay, and an Arduino to ignite remote ...more
After watching Samsung's exploding phone fiasco this past year, I took comfort knowing that the likelihood my iPhone would suddenly combust was slim. However, after hearing about a recent incident in Wisconsin, iPhone owners may have reason to worry. According to a man named ...more
The Note7 fireworks bonanza was unprecedented in scope. A recent report suggests that Samsung could lose upwards of $20 billion in lost profit due to this fiasco. Update: See the end of this article for Samsung's findings on what happened. Speculation abounds as we wait for ...more
The WonderHowTo Awards winners are in. The votes have been tallied. Despite all of these devastating wild fires, pyromania thrives!! Congratulations to Angel and his toothpaste potato fires for winning the 2008 Weird Science Award!! This fire setting trick rivals MacGyver's ...more
Video chatting has become an important factor in the overall smartphone experience. Even just a few years ago, 37% of teens were making video calls on a regular basis, and that number has surely grown. 85% of households with infants have used video chat apps to call relatives ...more
The long rumored and recently leaked Amazon phone has finally been unveiled, and in the interest of branding, continues down the Fire line—the Amazon Fire Phone. You can check out the full reveal here (warning: it's long), but I'll take you through all the features that sets t ...more
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that Amazon will be offering full refunds for any hoverboard purchased through its site in the United States or Canada, no matter when you bought it. Just visit amazon.com/returns or amazon.com/contact-us to start the pro ...more
2017 was a down year for HTC. First, the U11 and U Ultra were widely criticized. Later, Google purchased a large chunk of HTC's manufacturing division, leaving the Taiwanese company running with a skeleton crew after losing 2,000 key employees. But that's not stopping HTC — th ...more
Your Xbox Wireless Controller is a great way to play games on both Xbox One consoles and Windows 10 computers. However, you don't need to have any of those devices to enjoy your controller with your favorite games — you can seamlessly connect the Xbox Wireless Controller to yo ...more
Have you ever put together a basic survival kit for your home in case of an earthquake or natural disaster? If not, you should, because you'll want to be prepared should the worst happen. To cover your bare minimum necessities, gather at least seven days' worth of non-perisha ...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. Regardless of what this is called, this free energy looks amazing when demonstrated. This video tutorial will show ...more
The holidays are here. From the week of Thanksgiving until the end of the year, retailers will be offering massive discounts on your favorite items. So if you're looking for smartphone accessories, this is the time to buy. From Walmart to Best Buy, there are deals everywhere o ...more
Update: The LG G8 ThinQ has been announced. You can read all of the official specs at our full article on the new phone. 2018 was another rough year for LG. The mobile division lost over $700 million last year despite releasing four flagship-caliber phones. LG, however, remai ...more
As first reported by Korean media outlet Yonhap News Agency, Samsung has issued a global recall for all of its Galaxy Note7 models (except China, it seems). This unprecedented move will surely do serious damage to the Note brand, and even Samsung itself. The recall comes in t ...more
One of my favorite perks of this job is the opportunity to try out all the big flagship phones each year. Whether it's rating their suitability for a particular use-case or just entering their specs into our comparison tool, we have to get our hands on all major phones release ...more
Sorry, Galaxys S11–19, Samsung's jumping straight to Galaxy S20 this year. They're also going with essentially three base models before accounting for niche variants. Of these three models, it's clear which one's the best: the Galaxy S20 Ultra. We've rounded up all the specs ...more
For 2019, Sony is trying to shake its failures of the past and start fresh. Following the unsuccessful Xperia XZ series, Sony is changing the name of their flagship to a single number: Xperia 1. With the name change comes a few upgrades, one of which is its new look. Secondly, ...more
Once again, LG is mixing up its launch. Instead of the announcing the latest entry in G series later in the year, the LG G8 ThinQ was announced at Mobile World Congress 2019, shortly after Samsung's Galaxy S10 event. And instead of trying to match what other OEMs are doing, LG ...more
Players of Pokémon GO on Android now have a reason to turn on AR mode with the release of AR+ support via ARCore. Pokémon GO enthusiasts on iOS have had access to AR+ mode on ARKit-compatible iPhones and iPads (yes, I can attest to playing the game on a tablet, don't @ me) si ...more
A 5-year-old girl was injured after the battery in another Samsung phone exploded in China. The Samsung Note 4 was reportedly charging next to the sleeping girl when it blew up in her Guizhou-based home. The Guizhou Metropolitan Daily reports that the child's hands, face, and ...more
Sony Corp. is working on new battery technology that the company says would have a 40% longer life than a lithium-ion battery of the same size. Sony is planning to have the higher-capacity batteries on the market around 2020. Sony's current lithium-ion battery.. The new batter ...more