Otona No Kagaku Stirling Engine Kit

Otona No Kagaku-Stirling engine-021

Otona No Kagaku, or ‘Science for Adults’ is a ‘mook‘ (‘M’agazine + b’OOK’) series published by Gakken in Japan. Each issue has includes a kit that goes along with whatever the issues topic is. This one deals with heat engines and comes with a low temperature Stirling engine. The entire project took me about an hour to put together and it quite satisfying once you see it chugging away over a cup of hot water. This kit was bought from Karakuricorner, they have loads of the mooks there. If you know of anyone that likes science and can use a screw driver I would seriously think of buying one of these at a gift. And it’s not like the projects are lame either, you can make a pinhole camera, radio receivers from crystal to vacuum tube, microscopes, telescopes, and even a planetarium. I can only hope that one day I’ll be able to go into a book store of hobby shop here in the US and find kits of this quality and diversity. There may be some hope in this as I did notice that the pages of the mook are numbered from left to right. This would make translating the layout into English a lot simpler.

Translated version of the Otona no Kagaku web site 

Stirling engine kit photoset on Flickr

(Otona no Kagaku group on Flickr)

Stirling engine video 

 

 

Posted: December 2nd, 2006
at 3:58pm by John

Tagged with


Categories: Cool,DIY,Mad Science,Science

/*

Comments: 3 comments

*/


 

3 Responses to 'Otona No Kagaku Stirling Engine Kit'

Subscribe to comments with RSS

  1. This is a wonderful kit!. Easy to put together in about an hour. You will have a satisfying experience.

    richard ebbole

    16 May 07 at 5:52 pm

     

  2. I know it’s been a long time since this was posted, but people may still be finding it through search engines and I want to warn those people:

    Do not try to purchase anything through Karakuri Corner. I ordered the above stirling engine from then on Nov 1st, 2007. When it didn’t ship I emailed them to ask what was up, and they said it would definitely ship on the 15th. Except it didn’t, and I’ve sent two or three emails since with zero response. It’s now more than a month since I gave them my money, and I’ve had to contact my credit card company to dispute the charge.

    I also noticed that a couple weeks ago a larger, more respectable American webstore has begun stocking these engines. I won’t link to it to prove that I’m not just advertising, but I’m sure you can find it without too much trouble.

    Chris

    6 Dec 07 at 11:02 am

     

  3. I bought that exact kit from thinkgeek.com a week ago, but it came without instructions!!!

    Is there any way I can get just the instructions?

    This was intended as a Christmas gift and I’m running out of time!!!

    Micah A Rousey

    18 Dec 07 at 9:34 am

     

3 Comments »