Mad Science Features
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: Forget Keys—Use a Secret Knock to Open Your Locked Boxes
There is something special about a secret knock. It gets you into secret super villain meetings and is a surefire way to test for rotating bookcase passages. Secret knocks usually work with an intimidating drug lord and for policeman listening at the door for the correct pattern of raps.
How To: Prank Your Friends with Radioactive-Looking Mutant Plants That Glow Under Black Light
House plants are a refreshing reminder of the rich biosphere teaming with life just outside of our hermetically sealed human dens. They calm us and clean our air. But what would you do if you came across a glowing green flower on your dinner table? I would be startled, but not shaken.
News: This Thermal Lance Fueled by Bacon (Yes, Bacon) Can Cut Right Through a Steel Pan
You knew that the food you eat gives you energy, but did you know it can actually power a thermal lance with enough heat to burn through steel? A thermal lance, as in, the tool used to demolish buildings and bridges.
How To: Use a Funnel and Butane Torch to Make a Huge Corn-Flour Fireball
One of the coolest things about chemical reactions is that they can be so unexpected. I mean, who would think you can make water explode?
Inception in Real Life: Make These Lucid Dreaming Glasses and Take Control of Your Dreams
Dreams are like an internal human holodeck. Inside your mind, anything is possible, from your grandest wishes to your worst nightmares. This is all well and good, but what if you could control your dreams and become the omniscient god of a handpicked reality whenever you go to sleep? Inception took this idea to the logical extreme by invading other people's dreams.
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?
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.
Create Tomorrow's Fuel Today: Split Hydrogen and Oxygen from Water with Pencils and a Battery
Science-fiction writer Jules Verne predicted many scientific breakthroughs, including the moon landing, tasers, and nuclear submarines. In his 1874 book The Mysterious Island, Verne writes:
How To: Wildlife Photography with a DIY Motion-Triggered Camera
Even if you live in a big city, chances are you have some wild raccoons or foxes that cannot abide a vertical trash barrel. While apparently omnipresent, these phantasmic critters usually vanish in the night leaving only a shameless trail of refuse you never wanted to see ever again. While I haven't found a way to stop them, I can help you snap some photos of the dastardly creatures.
How To: Stop Bike Thieves Dead in Their Tracks! Make a Magnetically Controlled Bike Alarm
Bikes are a great form of transportation. They use human energy more efficiently than any other machine. You can keep it in your closet or hallway. You can even take it on the train in a pinch. However, this portability is also the bike's biggest draw back. If you own a bike in the city, chances are it will be stolen. Locks barely deter thieves armed with bolt cutters and crowbars. Throw the bike thieves for a loop and make a tilt-sensitive alarm. It will hopefully startle your bike's assaila...
How To: This DIY Soft-Circuit Military Tech Lets You Power Electronics Using Your Clothes
It turns out that the popularity of soft circuit electronics has leaked out of the interwebs and into the hands of the U.S. military. Soft circuit electronics allow you to literally sew electronics circuits into fabric using flexible conductive thread instead of wire. Soft circuits can be used for all sorts of fun projects, like the TV-B-Gone Hoodie and the Heartbeat Headband.
News: Brain Hacking and Thought-Controlled Quadcopters: The Good and Bad Future of Mind-Reading Devices
Until recently, brainwave-reading devices have pretty much only existed in science fiction. Sure, electroencephalography (EEG), the technology that powers these devices, has been used in medicine and psychiatry since the late 1800s, but diagnosing people's brains and reading their minds are two totally different things. The first EEG headsets available to the public were used mostly in gaming and even in fashion, but in the last few years, they've gotten a little more sophisticated.
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...
News: DIY Lab Instruments
Here are three awesome videos on whipping up lab quality instruments in your garage! Science is accessible!
News: The @Burnvideos Instagram Account Gives You Exactly That—And It's Mesmerizing
As Alfred monologued in The Dark Knight, "Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."
X-People Power: How to Make a Magneto Glove to Overthrow the Human Bourgeoisie
Around the world, X-People (yes... there are X-Women, too) are under attack from an intolerant sapiencentric ruling class. Integration without equality is a farce. Autonomy is denied outright. Human prejudice cannot abide a mutant state. Human fear, born to hate, imposes itself on the life of every mutant.
How To: Make These Sonic Distance Sensors for the Bad Driver in Your Life
Today's fancy cars come with all sorts of options, from power mirrors to working seat belts. Some of us condemned to live in the reality of capitalist recession have no car, or perhaps a very modest one. But your modest car can still have some cutting edge technology wedged into the trunk and dashboard if you know what you want and where to look for parts. Today, we make a parking sensor using a sonic range finder, just like in the vehicles our owners drive!
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: 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?
Galactic Invasion: How to Make a Wireless Robot Rocket Launcher
If you're like me, you were always jealous of the kids with rich parents who got to ride around in their own Power Wheels cars. Now that I am tall enough to sell my body and time, I find myself attaining childhood dreams like buying my own Power Wheels car. I would not have chosen the Barbie Jeep given the choice, but 40 bucks on Craigslist is an amazing deal.
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.
Galactic Invasion: How I Record Backyard Flights with a Cheap, Embeddable DIY Rocket Cam
Hobby rockets are tons of fun. Vicarious astronaut adventures abound with every launch. What if you want to be closer to the action though? What if you want to feel what it's like to be in a rocket at takeoff? With the discovery of tiny keychain cameras, we have technology small and cheap enough to fit inside a model rocket!
How To: Prank an Entire Dorm with a Perfume-Spraying Swiffer WetJet Booby Trap
Pranks are fun, but finding a way to maximize the affect of a prank can be tricky. Toilet papering the whole campus or repainting all of the parking spaces slightly smaller can take a long time and a lot of resources. A better plan of attack is to booby trap the choke points where your victims are forced to pass through. Think like a guerrilla. A dorm doorway is a good idea.
News: Welcome to Mad Science! Evil Experiments for Scientific Thrill Seekers
Welcome to the Mad Science World! Hold onto your radiation-shielded hard hats—we're going to be posting a ton of great how-to articles and videos every week, showcasing the maddest of the mad science experiments on the web. We hope you will be inspired to try these projects at home, but always remember—safety first!
How To: Launch Tiny Test Tube Rockets in Your Backyard with Just Baking Soda and Vinegar
Nothing to do this summer? Then spark things up with a little baking soda and some vinegar and make a tiny, working rocket. Best of all—you probably already have most of the materials and ingredients lying around the house. What You'll Need
Contest: Potassium Nitrate Crystals
Recreating one of Will's mad science experiments, I made some potassium nitrate crystals. This was definitely the most fun part of my DIY smoke mix. I can't win the contest, but I'm just putting it up here for fun, since I liked the pictures so much.
How To: Build a Frame for the Mega Solar Scorcher
Here is how you can build a frame for your MEGA SOLAR SCORCHER in under an hour, and for less than $8!! This is effectively a 4 foot magnifying lens that concentrates insane amounts of heat from the sun. What would you do with all this free solar power? My design for this custom "Scorcher Frame" is easy to use, and incredibly cheap to make, as you can see in this step-by-step video.
News: This Levitating Light Bulb Defies Gravity (And Ditches Unsightly Power Cords)
Helping to prove that science is way awesome, an 18-year old electrical engineering student has successfully made a light bulb float. His name is Chris Rieger, and he's been working on his "LevLight" project for about six months now, with pretty amazing results. This feat of ingenuity was accomplished by using magnetic levitation, although that over-simplification masks how considerably difficult this undertaking was.
How To: Make Your Art More 'Attractive' with Some DIY Magnetic Ink
Magnetic ink is generally used by the banking industry to allow computers to read information off of a check, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it. The guys over at openMaterials have figured out a great recipe for a DIY magnetic ink that you can use for an interesting art project—or just to mess around.
How To: Make a Sound Responsive Led's ?
REQUIREMENTS: LED's,connecting wires,tip 31 transistor,battery,3.5 mm audio jack,soldering machine,soldering wire,soldering paste.
News: Winners of Mad Science's Sugru Contest
Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas in last month's Mad Science contest. The question called for your best idea for using Sugru, a temporarily malleable silicone modeling clay that self cures for a soft-touch permanent bond. It's a marvelous product for at-home quick fixes and for even making some cool DIY bumpers and grips for your electronics. William scoured through all of the comments and chose the two winners he felt best deserved a pack of Sugru.
News: Let yourself In with this Hacked Morse Code Door Buzzer!
What happens when you add a few wires and a microcontroller to your door buzzer? You can let yourself into your building from the outside!
News: Submit a Pic of Your Craziest DIY Project, Win My Lucid Dreaming Goggles Kit
Mad Science is looking for more hackers, makers, and DIYers to participate in our community madness. If you've recently designed or made a project, we want to see it! Share with the other Mad Scientists out there by posting up a how-to of your pet project on our community corkboard, or even just a few cool, inspiring photos of the build.
DIY Lab Equipment: Make Your Own Litmus Paper Using Cabbage Juice
Home chemistry is great, but what happens when you forget to label your chemicals? How do you know if you turned a clear glass of ammonia into a clear glass of unobtainium? Chemists have a tool for just that.
How To: Create a Smart Sprinkler System to Water Your Garden When the Soil Dries Up
Spring has sprung, which means it's time to plant all those delicious vegetables and lucrative cash crops. If you are like me, every year you meticulously plan every aspect of your garden before dutifully neglecting it all summer. I decided enough was enough and built this simple automatic watering system.
How To: Create a Swarm of Robot Minions with These Popsicle Stick Arduino Hexapods
You're never too young to start building your vast swarm of robotic minions. Taking over the world requires a whole lot of robots. The sheer volume of robots needed means your first wave will have to be made of cheap materials. After they take over key resources, you can upgrade to Kevlar and titanium. But to start, let's make popsicle stick insect robots!
Contest: My Disposable Camera Taser
I made this taser using a disposable camera and duct tape! In the photograph, the taser is shocking a steel bookshelf.
Mad Science Giveaway: What Would You Do with Sugru, the Magical Mold-Anything Goo? [CLOSED]
CONTEST ENDED: WINNERS ANNOUNCED This contest has ended and winners have been announced. To see who won, check out our quick winners post. Thanks to everyone for submitting their ideas!
How To: Build a Light-Triggered Alarm to Catch Your Food-Thieving Roommate in Action
When I was attending college, my friends had a phantom thief in their dormitory. Almost every night, a different item of food would go missing, never to be seen again. There was constant speculation as to whom the thief was and how to catch them. Security cameras were deemed too invasive, but none could think of another method of surveillance... until today.