Fun with applied science

A cloud chamber shows alpha particles being emitted from americium sources. The chamber works by creating a layer of supersaturated alcohol vapor w...

Some photos here: http://benkrasnow.blogspot....

Here's an interesting reaction where lithium ...

I found some interesting materials at a local fleamarket (http://www.electronicsfleamar­ket.com): a canister of lithium sheet metal, and a bottle of...

Here I show how I made gassified candy (eg Pop Rocks) in my home shop. The basic procedure is to heat sugar water up to 280*F, carbonate it with 6...

A brand-new power strip emitted a loud pop and left a soot mark on my friend's hand when he plugged it into the wall. No devices were attached to t...

A liquid lens works by changing the shape of a water drop by creating an electrostatic field that pulls on the water molecules. I show how water ca...

I combined the High Intensity Discharge bulb and power supply from an old LCD with a desk lamp to create a 270W spotlight. I bypassed the power sup...

I built an improved cold trap from an aluminum pan and a stainless steel bowl. It held more ice than my original copper pipe cold trap, but the 100...

These bakers' yeast cells might be reproducing in the video. It's hard to tell if its just movement from the water under the cover slip

More phot...

In previous videos, I used supercritical CO2 to dry my homemade aerogels. This time, I soaked the aerogel in methanol, then raised the temperature...

Piezoelectric benders are devices that have piezoelectric material on either side of a long flexible metal strip. When the material contracts on o...

In his recent post, Chris Gammell used astronaut ice cream as a fun example of how high tech innovation trickles down to consumer-level products. S...

In a previous video, I showed how to extract caffeinated water from green coffee beans with supercritical CO2. Here, I show how to extract dry caf...

I finally succeeded in extracting caffeine from green coffee beans by using supercritical CO2. I built a high pressure chamber from 2" steel pipe f...

Every so often, internet news aggregator sites run a story about a research group that put an LED into a contact lens, then inserted it into a rabb...

This is a description of a simple opamp circuit that will translate the variable resistance of a Flexi-Force sensor into an analog voltage and main...

In an earlier video, I tried to visualize alpha particles in supercritical CO2, similar to an isopropanol vapor cloud chamber. Someone commented t...

I bounced a laser beam off of a window in my house and recovered the audio from inside the room via the beam deflection. I used a Hamamatsu S7815 a...

I followed instructions in the silica TMOS recipe from http://www.aerogel.org and successfully produced some small pieces of aerogel in my home sho...

In a previous video, I used a stainless steel water bottle as a pressure chamber to add argon and carbon dioxide to beer. This time, I used pure CO...

I tried to build a cloud chamber with supercritical CO2, thinking that ionizing radiation (alpha particles) would cause localized condensation of t...

I built a pressure chamber from 2" pipe fittings and 1/8" brass valves to contain supercritical CO2 for drying applications. One project is to try ...

This is a project that I built a few years ago when I learned about liquid lenses. They are quite useful for optical paths with small diameters.

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http://www.techkits.com/kit...

Stepper motors can be made to rotate more smoothly by providing simulated sine waves. The SLA7062 ...

This proves that proper technique is more important than brute strength if even I can rip a phone book in half.

There are many tutorials, eg http:...

I show how to weld aluminum cans together with a cheap import TIG welder. I am not a professional welder, so some of my advice may be unconvention...

I left my supercritical CO2 chamber charged up with 750 psi liquid CO2 (not supercritical) for about a week. I then depressurized the chamber, and...

I tried to extract caffeine from green coffee beans using supercritical CO2, but I had no success. The beans underwent a strange transformation, be...

Most beer is carbonated with 100% CO2. Some beers, notably Guinness and some other porter/stouts, contain a mixture of nitrogen and CO2 in a ratio...

I will be adding a valve to the chamber so that I can release pressure in a more controlled way.

I built a pressure vessel from aluminum and acrylic, and filled it by placing pieces of dry ice inside. The dry ice melts under high pressure, and...

This has been done many times, but is still fun and easy. This is the first time that I have tried it myself. The reaction produces Magnesium Oxi...

This is my first experience with FPGA programming, and so I made this video to show how easy it is to get started. Many of the tutorials on the we...

I've been cutting glass plates and mirrors with my CNC milling machine machine for years. In this video, I describe a few tips and the general tec...

I am not sure of the chemistry involved, but I have found that acetone and isopropanol vapor will darken the ink in thermal printer paper. There i...

I built this project a few years ago with a friend to help get him interested in mechanical design. Later, the project was adapted for display at ...

The 5V fixed output on my Shenzhen Mastech HY3005D-3 power supply died the other day, and so I took the device apart to investigate. The 5V regula...

I achieved neuronal stimulation of my primary motor cortex by using a single 15-turn coil and 1700 volt charge on the capacitor bank of about 190uF...

I ignited four pounds of thermite made with aluminum / iron (III) oxide in a flower pot. The thermite reaction quickly formed liquid iron which dr...

I am testing the frequency response of the TPS334 IR sensor. My very crude tests agree with the datasheet, which means that the image scan time wi...

I bought this bargain basement clamp-on current probe on eBay. It doesn't even seem to have a manufacturer (shamed out of existence?), but the mod...

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a technique to stimulate brain tissue directly through the skull. It works by sending a very high curre...

Here's a project that I built to feed my cat when I am away for short trips. It uses a commercial dry cereal dispenser, stepper motor that was hac...

One of my ongoing projects is to develop a low-cost thermal imaging camera. In this video, I take apart an Extech IR250 infrared thermometer with ...

I bought six 2600F 2.5V ultracapacitors from Electronic Goldmine. They were on sale a couple weeks ago, and this was one of my rare impulse purcha...

My first youtube videos were made with my camera's on-board stereo microphone. The camera is a Lumix GH1, and the mics are fairly good as far as p...