From Lifehacker …
How To Pull A Van Uphill (with Only A Rope) – video powered by Metacafe
This video shows one of the simplest machines, the pulley–not a lever as Lifehacker says–and how it increases your ability to lift/pull heavy things.
If you want to try this at home … try something other than a car … log or something.
Technorati Tags: simple machines, physics, pulley
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This is so simple you’ll be amazed it works. And the chemistry/physics behind this also keep you from falling on your tush in the winter:
He took 6 hot beers from my garage and he placed them into a steel pot from the kitchen
He tossed in enough ice cubes to completely cover the beer
He then filled the pot with water
Next, and this is the trick, he tossed in (what must have been) 2 cups of table salt.
He took a large wooden spoon and stirred this thing up to be sure the salt dissolved.
He placed the concoction into the freezer and in …read more
Need a daily dose of ideas to help save energy (and the planet…but that is such a huge concept, too distant for many…stick to stuff closer to home and you)? Check out LiveEarth’s Twitter feed:
Shading windows. It can lower your home’s temperature and reduce your cooling costs by 30%. Source: Twitter / LiveEarth070707
This tip is especially good right now as the hottest part of the summer is coming our way in the Northern Hemisphere (the Dog Day … which are named such because Sirius the Dog Star become visible this time of year). Another great one is to put a …read more
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Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process. Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever). Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass). Now, what if you could grow insulation? Yeah, grow. Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:
Placed in …read more
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Chemistry sets are getting a tad passe, if not whimpy. Well, try this book on for size:
Controversy over potentially hazardous chemistry experiments is nothing new. This amazing book only lasted two editions because it was considered too dangerous for children. Now, only 126 copies exist in libraries. Fortunately, a beautiful PDF version is available online. Modern texts still shy away from child-damaging pyrotechnic experiments but contain hundreds of very important projects. Geekkids can learn about gases and solids, acids and bases, atomic structure, osmosis, chemical bonding, solvents, crystallization… everything. Source: Geekdad – Wired Blogs
I downloaded the book and started to …read more
LEGO ice cubes now those look cool. Now for a geek dad just buying the mold is just out of the question:
First things first: Making your own Lego ice cube trays is emphatically not cheaper than buying them straight out from from Lego. It is probably more fun, and since I wanted to learn mold-making, it gave me an excuse to buy a few materials and take a stab at it. Details after the jump. Source: Geekdad – Wired Blogs
Man I wonder what will happen when his kid wants a car!
Yeah I know lots of people think earthworms are yucky, but they are essential to plants and good soil. The cool thing is that you can have worms in your kitchen chomping away at your veggie waste and all the while making kick-butt fertilizer for your garden! It’s called vermiculture. I had a worm bin for a while and it was pretty successful for a while (I got it and the worms from these folks), I had trouble keeping the stuff moist and such. I think I bit off more than I could chew.
Well, worm poop is big business you …read more
Remember my coffee can racer from a while back? Well from GeekDad I got to a site where you can put all those dern, unrecyclable CDs to good use…turn them into racers!
Man I wish I had found that earlier, cause how many kids get to race a car with wheels made from beta builds of Ubuntu!
Tags: science for kids, cd racers
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Ah sex. Such an awesome science topic. You get to discuss something that is often spoken in hushed tones in the name of science. So you think you know when you’re turned on? Guess what … your body is already getting primed for sex before you are even conscious of it. How’s that for unconscious desire!
According to the sequence put forward in the mid-20th century by the pioneering sex researchers William Masters, Virginia Johnson and Helen Singer Kaplan, a sexual encounter begins with desire, a craving for sex that arises of its own accord and …read more
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Well the can car was a huge success. In the end it went like stink and my daughter could probably start a business making them for people. The device wasn’t without some problems, though. When it left my house it was working great, but sometime later the rubber band broke. Oops. It took a lot of work and panicked phone calls to me to get it running again.
There are two key parts to a successful can car. First is using a bead or nut on the winding end. That pencil or chop stick can’t be touching the whole lid, in …read more
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