how-to

Homemade USB fan….!

June 24, 2008

For those do-it-yourselfers out there, here’s a pretty neat hack — make a USB fan out of two CD’s and a toilet paper tube (and a few wires). Of course, as the comments suggests, it might take off an ear. But what’s an ear in the service of experimentation? Or, as another commenter exclaims, ” [...]

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Activity: Take it from the Top

June 20, 2008

Here’s something for the K-12 educators out there (or just those who like to play around with large chunks of wood. I mean, who doesn’t?). I just posted a new episode for my Science Teaching Tips podcast. Check out the new episode – “Take it from the Top”. Don Rathjen was a K-12 science teacher [...]

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How to make hyperbolic coral

June 20, 2008

This is a follow-up to my original post on Margaret Wertheim and her hyperbolic coral project. There’s also a little more about Margaret Wertheim’s hyperbolic crochet project from the Exploratorium, and a live webcast from the Exploratorium with her, to learn how to crochet coral critters (scroll down to July 2007). Margaret Wertheim is a [...]

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Stringing us along…

April 18, 2008

I’ve got a new podcast episode… In this episode one of the teachers in our teacher workshops showed us one of his favorite activities, using the sound of paperclips (attached at intervals on a string) to estimate the rate of free fall. It’s a really elegant little experiment! Click this link to check it out: [...]

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Make your own phonograph

July 6, 2007

I love this little activity… Have an old record but no record player? Here’s how you can listen to it. Take a record and stick a pencil through the hole in the middle so it’s pretty close to the point of the pencil. That’s your turntable. Now take a piece of paper and roll it [...]

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