Category: Mad Science

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

Sub $100 digital frame

 

 

 

Add one part Sony PS1 LCD screen and one part SanDisk Digital Photo Viewer bake for half an hour in a slow oven and you get a sub USD$100 digital picture frame. (I’m kidding about the oven part). I have an TFT LCD screen that I wired up as a remote TV monitor a few years ago that would be perfect for this. I’ll have ro find one of those SanDisk Digital Photo Viewers and build one of these. Funny, I remember seeing one in a store and I thought that it would be the perfect thing to load up and send to the relatives for them to see pictures of the kids. Now I can add a screen and presto! Zero instalation (ok, grandma will have to attach the wall wart, but that’s pretty easy). With 32 MB CF cards costing next to nothing this might be fun to do.

[via MAKE] 

Cheap ‘n Easy Digital Picture Frame

DIY – Alcohol Backpacking Stove

Penny alcohol burner

As many of you might have seen I recently posted a project for gutting an old light bulb in order to make other things out of it. Well one of the  great uses a resurrected light bulb has is as a small vessel to boil liquids in. As long as you don’t confine the gasses crated by the boiling you should be OK, the glass is thin and won’t take all that much pressure. This DIY camping stove would make a great heat source for boiling water in a light bulb. Plus, you can take it with you when your in the woods. How neat is that?

[via Google] 

Penny Alcohol Backpacking Stove

DIY Hollow Out A Light Bulb

Lightbulb project

You can never have enough projects, right? Well I think that’s true. Tonight I finished my tutorial on how to hollow out a light bulb and re-use it for other things like art projects and science stuff. So don’t throw out that dead light bulb, make it into a salt shaker or something… 

DIY Hollow Out A Light Bulb

Camera Coil-Gun

Coilgun 

Now this is the sort of project I can sink my teeth into. What do you get when you cross a disposable camera flash with a bit of wire, and steel BB’s? A coil gun! Yeah… That’s the good stuff. Jeff provides plans and links to build your own weapon of choice. Have fun and be safe, if you can do the two at the same time. If not you can go as a pirate for next Halloween.

Jeff’s Camera Coil-Gun

Micro Maxx Paper Rockets!

A few years ago I messed around with those super small rockets called Micro Maxx from Quest. They were ok, but the low altitude (25 foot) flights didn’t make much of an impression on me. However, some people have gone farther than launching them in their back yards and have decided to build their own. Some of the designs are pretty darn cool.

Bic Pen Rocket

Quest Micro Maxx fan site

Micro Maxx paper kits, print them out!

FlisKits – Micro Maxx kits 

If your looking for an easy and fun project for the weekend and your not in an area that has large fields (like a crowded city) this is perfect fo you. I’m going to pick up some parts and start building some.

 

Astronomical Toilet Paper

Astro TP

 

 

 

In an attempt to make astronomy more popular, a Japanese company has come out with toilet paper that is printed with astronomical information. So far you can get either ‘The life of a star’ or ‘Beyond the zodiac’. ‘The life of a star’ tells the story of solar evolution, from a molecular cloud up to a planetary nebula. A translation can be found here. The second set, ‘Beyond the zodiac’, as they say, "… we represent the signs of zodiac and some astronomical objects toward these constellations. You can feel the depth of the universe with this ATP." I’d hope that you would feel the softness of the paper and not the universe but that’s another story.
As a teaching tool it will probably go a long way in increasing the awareness of astronomy among those who read while doing their business.

[via Ektopia] 

Astronomical Toilet Paper