Halloween is coming right up, so it is time to post one of our favorite costumes to help get everyone in the spirit. This is a darned good looking bat costume you can make from a hoodie and an umbrella.
Yes, similar costumes have been made before. Even Martha‘s done it. However, our version is better.
Continue reading How to Build a Better Bat Costume
“Hi!”
So says Reddy Kilowatt. Reddy is a friendly mascot for the electrical industry, orginally created by the Alabama Power Company in 1926. Reddy is mostly electricity, as you can see, but he’s got a light-bulbous nose and a socket in his ear.
Reddy even has a Yahoo groupfan club.
There is, however, something wrong with this friendly picture. This is a detail from a larger photograph; read on to see the big picture.
Continue reading Hi! Meet Reddy Kilowatt
Yesterday we went on a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. On the way back, we stopped for a little birdwatching at Moss Landing State Beach, halfway between Monterey and Santa Cruz. We were surprised to see a dozen or so sea otters playing in the water and snapped a few photos.
It’s not like the presence of otters at Moss Landing is any secret; it’s just that no one had told us about it. Among others, Laurie Darcey has taken some incredible photos of otters playing there, go check them out.
Read on to see a few more of our photos.
Continue reading We see sea otters
Yes, it’s time for the state of the blog address. We took the EMSL blog online on June 21, 2006, three months ago. (It was about time that we started organizing our projects.)
So, happy quarter-birthday to us. Thus far we’ve put up some thirty projects. We’re actively working on about forty others right now.
If you haven’t bookmarked us, now is a fine time to do so. =)
Minor announcement I: We’ve just created a new group on flickr as a repository for our project photos.
Minor announcement II: We’ve also updated our CafePress shirt design:
Front: “Resistor” Rear: “Join the resistance.”
(Get one.)
Minor announcement III: Today we’re adding a new section of links to our web page, “Honorary Mad Scientists,” a short, specific, non-exhaustive list of creative people, sites, and/or blogs that we admire. We thought about calling the list “people like us,” but (1) it’s cocky of us to think that we can be as cool as these people and (2) maybe these folks don’t want us to suggest that they are anything like us. So, we’ll just call them Honorary Mad Scientists; read on for a partial list.
Continue reading Navel gazing: The first three months, and folks we admire.
Today we’re publishing three articles on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion, a means of propelling a ship without moving parts like paddlewheels or propellers. Instead, MHD relies on passing electrical currents through the water, effectively turning the water itself into part of an electric motor, where the only thing that moves is the water.
Here’s a quick guide to the articles:
PS: Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arr.
Mod a cheap radio control boat into an RC magnetohydrodynamic vehicle.
This design serves as proof of principle for modding an RC vehicle to run on MHD. Rather than being a performance design, it travels at an astonishing speed of several feet per minute since it uses essentially the same design as our foam-tray MHD boat.
Read on to find out how we made the conversion, what worked and what didn’t, and how we plan to get some speed in the next revision.
Continue reading MHD III: Hacking an RC Boat to use Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion
After trying out our simple demonstration of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion, you might want to make something a little more “practical.” Here’s how to build a simple little boat that moves through salt water (at a snail’s pace) via MHD propulsion.
The craft is not designed for performance; it’s designed to demonstrate a functional MHD craft made with inexpensive, easily available materials. While it may move slowly, hey, it moves, and you can make it in about five minutes.
Continue reading MHD II: Make a magnetohydrodynamic propulsion boat
Rember the silent caterpillar drive from the movie The Hunt for Red October? The caterpillar drive was a fictional magnetohydrodynamic propulsion system. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) propulsion is a means of using electrical current, instead of a noisy propeller, to push a ship through the water.
Surprisingly enough, a working example of this futuristic drive system is quite easy to build. Assuming that you’ve got the materials handy, you can build one in about a minute. You’ll need a strong magnet, two pieces of thick copper wire, a little dish of warm water, salt and pepper, and a regular battery.
Continue reading MHD I: Demonstrate Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion in a Minute
I saw this fantastic photo by Thierry Legault at spaceweather.com today. It was taken just a day ago (Sept. 17) and shows the space shuttle Atlantis just after undocking from the International Space Station, silhouetted against the disk of the sun.
Download the high-resolution version (1.0 MB JPEG file and worth it).
I’ve been in awe of Thierry Legault’s photos since I saw this one on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site five years ago. Cool stuff!
They look the same. They feel the same. What’s the difference? You’ll have to drop them to find out.
Continue reading Happy and Sad Balls
