Make: Kit Reviews

This beautiful engine teaches you the basics of thermodynamics as its power comes from an external heat source, which can be anything from fuel to solar to geothermal energy. The instructions are in Japanese, but the Maker Shed page has an English translation. MAKE is proud to be the exclusive distributor in North America for […]

Science: heirloom tech, Science, Stirling Engine, thermodynamics

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

This amazing demo shows how you can transmit sound over a laser beam. The transmitter modulates power to a laser pointer with audio from a headphone jack. The receiver is just an earphone and a solar cell; no power source. I assembled both in minutes, and it was strange (in a good way) to hear music […]

Science: communication, Science, spy gear

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

TubeSat makes space your personal laboratory. You build a satellite the size of a large soup can, get it launched into a 310km Earth orbit moving 17,000 miles an hour, and talk to it via ham radio a few times a day for 1–3 months. Smile as you reflect on your new skills in surface-mount […]

Science: ham radio, satellites, Science