Make: Kit Reviews

Thomas Edison purportedly said that he didn’t fail 700 times in trying to make the incandescent light, he succeeded in proving 700 ways not to do it. Now it can be your turn. This fun science kit is designed to excite and engage experimenters of all ages in re-creating the development of the first light […]

Science: lightbulb, Science, Thomas Edison

MAKE contributor John Iovine has been designing and improving affordable Geiger counters for decades. After Japan’s nuclear crisis last spring, his company was swamped with orders. Now they’re working on even better designs and DIY kits. This analog counter detects beta radiation above 36 kilo-electron volts (keV) and gamma above 7keV, signaling each radioactive particle detected with an […]

Science: analog, Geiger counter, Science

When I told my 8-year-old daughter I had a kit to clone fluorescent jellyfish DNA, she was excited to try it. But this is a high-school level project. The reagents are sent in a styrofoam box with dry ice, and the projects require a polymerase chain reaction thermal cycler (which Genotyp will loan out to classrooms that […]

Science: cloning, fluorescent, genes, Science

This is a solder-together kit for studying the electrical impulses of cockroach neurons. The online instructions are excellent, with videos and plenty of clear photos of the assembly process. My 8-year-old daughter identified and inserted all the electrical components into the clearly marked printed circuit board through-holes, and I did the soldering. She asked me […]

Science: brain recording, bugs, cockroaches, Science