Hot Mad Science Posts

How To: Build a Long Range Laser Spy System for Eavesdropping on Your Neighbors

Eavesdropping from a distance can be tricky because it usually requires some sort of bug or transmitter. It's easy to transmit audio through lasers, but you can also use lasers to build a microphone that picks up audio from a distance. LucidScience built the Laser Spy System for about $20. To make your own, you'll need a cheap laser pointer, an NPN phototransistor, a headphone amp, and a few other small pieces listed below. A light-to-sound circuit is installed in a small plastic box with the...

How To: Create a PCB Etchant That Automatically Improves After Each Use

Etching your own circuit boards is tons of fun, but etching requires strong chemicals to dissolve the copper plating on blank circuit boards. The normal ferric chloride solution works well, but can be expensive and leaves permanent stains. Luckily, we can whip up our own etchant at home with everyday chemicals! Better yet, our new etchant will turn an eerie green color rather than the dull brown of ferric chloride.

How To: Turn Water into Fuel by Building This DIY Oxyhydrogen Generator

Here's how to build a sexy looking water-fuel generator that will convert your tap water into an extremely powerful, clean burning gas!

DIY Blacksmithing: Forge Your Own Steel at Home!

Metal is a great material to work with. It's rigid, tough, malleable and conductive, but sometimes the part we need doesn't exist in any store. In order to create custom pieces, you need to either melt the metal and cast it in a mold, or heat it until it's soft enough to shape with your hammer. Properly melting metals can be a bit dangerous in our home shop, but we can make a coffee can forge for all of our home blacksmithing needs.

How To: Make a Hydrogen Fireball from Aluminum Foil and Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Balloons are fun, but the helium ones are always more entertaining. So today, we're going to learn how to make hydrogen gas by combining toilet bowl cleaner with aluminum foil. With hydrogen, you get the same lighter-than-air properties of helium, plus it will explode! Historically, this has proven disastrous, but for our tiny-scale experiments, it will be safe and fun!

How To: Weapons for the Urban Guerrilla: Make a Taser from a Disposable Camera

The agents of empire do not always arrive with warning. When you are besieged, surrounded, and infiltrated, imagination is often your best weapon against the oppressors. If all you have at hand is some duct tape and a disposable camera, fear not, you have the makings of a powerful taser!

News: Explosive Polymerization Is Basically Magic

This video is by Adrian McLaughlin, aka plasticraincoat1 on YouTube, who shows us one of the most magnificent examples of explosive polymerization ever. In the video, what appears to be about 1/2 tsp of p-nitroaniline (which is short for para-nitroaniline, which is also referred to as 4-nitroaniline) is treated with a few drops of concentrated sulfuric acid, in a ceramic dish, over a Bunsen burner flame.

Bat Science: How Realistic Are Batman's Gadgets in Dark Knight Rises?

One of the best things about Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is how realistic he makes the caped crusader feel. Unlike the Joel Schumacher or even the Tim Burton versions, Nolan's world seems grounded in some level of scientific fact. But just how close is science to actually being able to replicate some of the Dark Knight's gadgetry?

Spice Rack Explosives: How to Make Gunpowder with Salt & Sugar

The best chemistry experiments are those you can perform with items already laying around your house. With only some sugar, salt substitute and an instant cold pack, you can make your very own gunpowder! Being able to make homemade gunpowder without a trip to the store can be a lifesaver, no matter if it's just for testing out a Civil War-era musket, blowing up stubborn tree stumps, or preparing for battle when imperialists overrun your country.

How To: Make Slow Burning Fuses from Yarn, Sugar, & Potassium Nitrate

Here's how to make a simple form of a slow burning fuse from materials around the house. WARNING: Ignition of an incendiary or explosive material may not be legal in your area, so check local laws before attempting. Use of this video content is at your own risk.

Supercool Science Trick: How to Turn Water into Ice on Command

This is an awesome little science trick that has to be seen to be believed. Simply by emptying a bottle of "supercooled" water into a glass, you can watch it turn into ice right as your pour! It's no magic trick or chemical craziness—it's normal water and you can try it yourself right in your own home.

How To: Turn a Microwave Oven Transformer into a High Amperage Metal Melter!

In this project, you'll learn step by step how to modify a microwave oven transformer into a high-current device that can pump out 800 amps of electrical current, which is enough amperage to melt metal. If you liked the Metal Melter you saw in my previous project, here's how you can make your own!

DIY Polygraph Machine: Detect Lies with Tin Foil, Wire and Arduino

Lying is awesome. From a very young age, children learn that flat out denying the truth gets you out of trouble and helps keep you calm in the face of horror. But what happens when you just have to know if someone, say, used your toothbrush? You could ask them to take an expensive and arduous polygraph test.

Elementary Sputnik Satellites: How to Make Trash Bag Hot Air Balloons

Sputnik was the very first man-made object to be sent into space. Though it was a truly epic accomplishment, all this Soviet sky surfer actually did was transmit a constant beeping noise back to the surface.

News: This DIY Mini Tesla Coil Packs 380,000 Volts of Lightning

At one point in time, Tesla coils were actually used for things like wireless telegraphy and electrotherapy, but as technology advanced, they shifted to a slightly more enjoyable purpose—entertainment. What's even more entertaining than using a Tesla coil? Building your own. One of the best portable Tesla coils out there is this mini acrylic version by Daniel Eindhoven, aka TeslaCommander. It's made almost entirely of acrylic plastic, minus the steel sphere, and copper wire and tubing. When t...

How To: Your Personal NASA Program from Garbage: How to Build a Pulsing Jar Jet Engine

Jet engines combine oxygen from the surrounding air with on-board fuel to burn at very high temperatures and create thrust in the direction of the flame. Rockets, which we will learn about in a later post, are similar but carry oxygen internally and can therefore function in space!

How To: DIY Rocket Propellant! How to Cook Solid Rocket Fuels Using Common Household Ingredients

Cooking isn't something that interests me much, unless it results in a fast burning fuel and a successful rocket launch!

How To: Build a Vacation Pet Feeder with a DIY Linear Actuator

If you are a pet owner, going on vacation can be stressful. Usually, you need a friend or neighbor to come over everyday and feed your pets. However, by enslaving robots you can keep your pet happy and enjoy a stress-free holiday.

How To: Make Solid Rocket Fuel at Home with Old Newspapers

Old newspapers come in handy for many different uses around the house, from birdcage liners to shipping cushioning and even a little fish cooking. But for backyard rocket scientists like Markus Bindhammer, they're more suitable as an ingredient for rocket propellant.

How To: Make a Lethal Traveling Arc of Electricity with a MOT-Powered Jacob's Ladder

With the microwave oven transformer (M.O.T.) salvaged in a previous project, a simple electrical circuit can be rigged to get high voltage arcs to fly outward and upward along a "V" shaped spark gap.

How To: Are Your Gadgets Safe from Solar Storms and Nuclear Attacks?

It's September 1st, 1859, and the Earth looks more or less like something out of an apocalyptic movie or Sci-Fi novel. All communications have failed, it's so bright outside at midnight that people are getting up and making breakfast, and people all over the world are seeing auroras. The solar storm that produced the electromagnetic pulse and caused all this mayhem is known as the Carrington Event, and storms like it happen about about once every century.

Get Into the Kit Business: How to Build and Sell Your Own Arduino Shields

The DIY industry is booming, despite the desperate blackmailing of society by finance capitalists. Companies like Adafruit and Makerbot are grossing well over a million dollars a year, and Evil Mad Science Laboratories just recently dedicated themselves to running a full-time kit business. Making kits is fun, but starting a business can be scary. If you already enjoy making gadgets and want to take the plunge into selling your own kits online, this article is for you.

DIY Solar Power: Make Your Own Diode-Based Solar Panels and Capture the Sun's Energy!

Solar panels are an amazing invention. Catching energy from the Sun before it even enters Earth's food chain, photovoltaics are like an all-natural nuclear power plant. Unfortunately, the constituted parts of a solar panel are rare, valuable, and subject to the coercive forces of market competition.

How To: Create Your Own Cast and Oogoo to Give Your DIY Gadgets the Shape You Want

I think it's fair to say that every maker yearns for a 3D printer. You can replace circuit board connectors, fix your glasses, create ski grips, and make whole machines out of printed plastic parts—even a 3D printer. But without a 3D printer on hand, you can always resort to Sugru.

News: DIY Arduino Battery Tester Reveals the Secret Capacity of Disposable Batteries

Your favorite device is running low on juice and needs a couple new AA batteries—and with a quickness. You run to the store and grab the first pack of AAs you see. But should you? There's tons of options available, so which make and model gives you the most power per dollar?

DIY Hydrogen Fuel Cell: How to Create the Fuel of the Future at Home

As some of you Mad Science readers will remember, we recently covered the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. Passing a current through water can rend it apart, but we can also recombine that oxygen and hydrogen to make electricity! This is the principle behind those vehicles run by hydrogen fuel cell engines.

How To: Turn Ordinary Water into Explosive Gas That Goes KABOOM!

Maybe not water per-se, but with this simple technique you can turn one of the most abundant materials on earth into a highly explosive gas.

How To: Shoot Fire from a Water Bottle Using Rubbing Alcohol and a Match

You've made a bottle rocket (or ten) and a sparkler bomb, and now you want to put those empty plastic bottles to a new pyromaniacal use. With a little rubbing alcohol and a match, this video by io9's Esther Inglis-Arkell will show you how to make your own homemade rocket booster in a bottle.

How To: 10 Things to Do at a Birthday Party with Liquid Nitrogen

If you've got a birthday party to plan for a young budding scientist coming up, a little nitrogen should do the trick. In this project, I'll show you 10 "super cool" tricks with liquid nitrogen that you could try, but probably shouldn't!

How To: Make Dry Ice at Home Using a CO2 Fire Extinguisher

Here's how to make dry-ice at home, or wherever you feel like it! All you need is a pillow case, and a CO2 fire extinguisher.

How To: Need a Hot Plate? Use an Iron as a Quick (And Free) DIY Alternative

If you're the kind of person who frequently does science experiments at home, you probably have a hot plate. But if you're more of an occasional amateur scientist (or just don't want to buy one), it's much easier to hack your own.

How To: Design Your Own Custom Arduino Board Microcontroller

Microcontrollers are great. You can do anything from water your garden to catch wildlife trash diggers in the act—and on the cheap. I prefer to use the Arduino microcontroller because of the large and helpful community built around the website. Though it is my favorite, there are some drawbacks to using an Arduino board in every project. It gets expensive, the board can take up too much space, and the rat's nest of breadboard wires are a pain to repair.

How To: Make Your Own "TV-B-Gone" to Silence All Televisions That Oppose You

Whether you're in an airport, restaurant or waiting room, the insidious grip of televisions on human life is omnipresent. Sometimes it's nice to talk to other human beings while looking at them directly—actually hearing what they have to say.

How To: Bring Your Dead Phone Battery Back to Life with a Portable Solar-Powered Cell Phone Charger

What's the first thing you would do once you realized you were lost in, say, a desert? If you're like me, you would immediately pull out your cell phone and start dialing every number. But what if you have no service? What if your battery is dead?

News: This Wooden DIY Cell Phone Is Way Cooler Than Any Shiny Smartphone

There's no denying the coolness of an iPhone. But what if you pulled a homemade wooden cell phone out of your pocket instead? You'd probably be the talk of the town. If you like that idea, then make it a reality by building your own cell phone!

News: Freaking DIY Magma! Syracuse University Creates Recyclable Red-Hot Lava Flows

Believe it or not, it's possible to make your very own lava—if you have a furnace capable of heating up to 1,200 degrees Celsius, that is. Bob Wysocki and Jeff Karson started the Syracuse University Lava Project to study basaltic lava and give students a hands-on way (hypothetically, of course) to learn about it. Oh, and they also want to use it for art projects. Sign me up for that class! It all starts with 1.1 billion-year-old basalt gravel, which apparently anyone can buy. They put the gra...

How To: Make a "Joule Thief" and Create Zombie Batteries for More Power After Death

Just about every household gadget we own runs on 1.5 volt batteries of one size or another. Wouldn't it be great if you could reuse all of those dead AA, AAA, and D batteries after they've passed on? It turns out you can make a simple circuit called a "Joule Thief" to reanimate the undead flesh of your deceased batteries and create a zombie battery.

How To: Build Your Own Mini Altoids Guitar Amp for About $5

I love making beeps and bloops with the Arduino pitches library, but sometimes archaic 8-bit tunes just don't cut it. Whether you want your robot to terrify your enemies with a demonic synthetic voice, you just need a pocket boom box on the go, or you want to a miniature guitar amp, a simple LM386 amplifier can crank up those signals loud enough to play through any speaker.

How To: Make "Fight Club" Soap Out of Bacon & Drain Cleaner

To make soap, you need fat, and if you've seen Fight Club, you're probably well aware of where soapmaker Tyler Durden got his fat from. Liposuction clinics. If you're not willing to go that far for a perfect bar of homemade soap, you can just use some drain cleaner and America's favorite food instead—bacon!

How To: Make Homemade Smoke Flares with Fuses

Here's a technique I used to whip up a batch of super cheap and easy to make smoke flares! WARNING: Ignition of an incendiary or explosive material may not be legal in your area, so check local laws before attempting. Use of this video content is at your own risk.