Collaborate Disseminate
Since the first of our ancestors discovered that banging a stick on a hollow log makes a jolly sound, we hominids have been finding new and unusual ways to make music. We haven’t come close to tapping out the potential for novel instruments, but then again it’s not every day …read more
Continue reading Unique Musical Instrument Defies Description
As a work of art, solenoid engines are an impressive display of electromagnetics in action. There is limited practical use for them though, so usually they are relegated to that realm and remain display pieces. This one from [Emiel] certainly looks like a work of art, too. It has eight …read more
The tin can phone is a staple of longitudinal wave demonstrations wherein a human voice vibrates the bottom of a soup can, and compression waves travel along a string to reproduce the speaker in another can at the other end. All the parts in this electrical demonstration are different, but …read more
It seems that the more hectic life gets, the harder it is to consciously slow down and enjoy the experience. There’s always another bill to worry about, and a new deadline around the corner. The last thing we need are ultra-precise digital clocks everywhere we look. When it’s time to …read more
The earliest piston engines typically had only one cylinder, and at best, produced horsepower measured in single digits. But once you have a working engine, it’s a relatively short step to adding cylinders and increasing the power output. [Emiel] made a similar upgrade to one of his engines recently, upgrading …read more
A solenoid engine is a curiosity of the electrical world. By all measures, using electricity to rotate something can be done almost any other way with greater efficiency and less hassle. But there’s just something riveting about watching a solenoid engine work. If you want to build one of your …read more
As far as electric propulsion is concerned, the vast majority of applications make use of some kind of rotational motor. Be it induction, universal, brushed or brushless, these are the most efficient ways we have to do mechanical work with electricity. There are other, arcane methods, though – ones which …read more
Continue reading Stunning 4-Cylinder Solenoid Motor Should Be A Hit With Subaru Fans
There’s no doubting the allure of a nicely crafted LED cube; likewise, there’s no doubting that they can be a tremendous pain to build. After all, the amount of work scales as the cube of the number of LEDs you want each side to have, and let’s face it – …read more
Continue reading Lead Former Makes LED Cubes a Little Easier to Build
Toy pianos are fun to plink around on for a minute, but their small keyboards and even smaller sound make them musically uninteresting pretty quickly. [Måns Jonasson] found a way to jazz up a two-octave toy piano almost beyond recognition. All it took was thirty solenoids, a few Arduinos, a …read more
Some hackers have a style all their own that is immediately recognizable from one project to the next. For instance, you can tell a [Takashi Kaburagi] by its insides. The behavior of his Farting Baseball project (machine translation) is amusing, but the joke is only skin deep. Look inside and …read more
Continue reading Farting Baseball; From the Makers of Self-Solving Rubik’s Cube