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Showing posts from October, 2012

Electric stroboscope

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Materials: • 10'' 1x2'' wood • Matt board • 11/2''x 3'' cardboard tube • Hobby motor • AA Battery • Wide rubber band • Wire (solid core preferred) • Cloths pins • Aluminum foil   • Tape Tools: • Hot glue gun • Small wood saw • Utility knife • Wire strippers • Compas • Circle cutter (optional, available from cart and art supply stores ) Cut a 5-6'' matt board circle using a compass and a utility knife or a circle cutter to make your shutter disk. Make sure that you have a method of marking the center and the radial slot before cutting your circle out.  Use a nail to poke a hole in the center of your shutter disk. The nail should be slightly smaller than your motor shaft. Cut a 1/8'' to 1/4'' slot about 1/3 of the way through the disk.  One slot will allow good viewing of most things, but if you want to look at something that moves particularly fast you may want 2 or 3 slots.

flat flashlight

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Materials: •5mm led ( we got ours from Evil mad Scientist , their prices are good in 100+ quantity, they also sell a bright defused version    , all electronics or goldmine electronics are also good place to start looking water clean leds)   • 3v lithium button battery ( we got ours from sciplus.com item #  40919) • copper tape (found in the gardening section of hardware stores as an anti snail/ slug product or alternatively in 1/4'' form on amazon  ) • wide popsicle stick (tongue depressor)  Tools: Scissors The first step is to put a long strip of copper tape down the length of the popsicle stick with enough extra to wrap about 1'' to the other side like so. Place your button battery on to the piece of copper tape you wrapped over the end of the stick with the positive side up. Take a shorter piece of copper tape and fold the end over about .75'' each side,  then glue on the copper tape. Glue is not conductive so you have

Personal Fan

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Materials: • 8'' 1x2'' pine • Plastic cup or bottle • Masking tape • Aluminum foil • Hobby motor • 1 AA battery • Solid core wire (we like telephone wire) • Thumb tacks • A broccoli rubber band, or inner tube cut off Tools: • Small wood saw • Scissors • Wire strippers • A hammer • Hot glue gun First take a piece of foil and fold it to make a 2" x .75'' strip and tack it loosely in place on one side of the handle. Add a second tack under the end of the foil (not through it). Then twist two lengths of telephone wire (with ends stripped) onto each tack so the exposed copper touches the tack. Hammer the tacks in to lock the wires in place; this completes the fan's switch. To complete the circuit cut and add a third piece of wire and create a path that goes from the switch to the motor to the battery and back to the switch.  Stretch a broccoli rubber band or a cut off piece of inner tube around the battery, and simply s