DIY Life

If you are looking to give your special someone a gift on Valentines Day that is unique and can't be bought in stores, look no further! This project is based on the Homopolar Motor, it can be built in a few minutes and will cost you less than a dollar in parts but the results are quite impressive. Chances are you already have everything needed in a few drawers in your house.

Items you will need:

• AA Battery
• 10 Gauge wire (thinner wire will also work fine)
• Magnet
• Pliers to cut and form the wire

We use magnets in our everyday life, they hold notes onto the fridge, pick up metal parts that dropped in awkward places, they are even used in some high security keys. We have also seen two different types of magnets, permanent magnets such as your fridge magnet which is always magnetized. And electromagnets used in applications like junk yard car cranes which can be turned on and off as needed.

One interesting application of the electromagnet is creating a magnetic levitation device. This is where a magnet is used to lift an object towards it but does not let the object touch the magnet. There are a few ways to do this but here are the operational steps for one of the simpler methods.

1. Power is applied to the electromagnet, a metal object will now be attracted to the magnet and want to move towards it.
2. A sensor is then used to detect when the object that is now moving towards the magnet is too close.
3. The step 2 sensor now causes the magnet to turn off.
4. Since the magnet is now off the item falls away from the magnet.
5. The sensor now detects that the object has fallen away slightly and applies power to the electromagnet again (step 1)

The sensor is generally an IR sensor which consists of an infrared LED and an infrared transistor. The LED sends out IR light and the transistor looks for the presence of the light. These sensors would be setup so that they look at each other creating a beam, this beam would be located directly below the electromagnet. Any object that gets too close to the electromagnet would then block the beam of infrared light.

Magnetic Levitation devices are available for purchase, but there is no fun just buying something when you could make it yourself! The video above demonstrated a device built by JHLI. He doesn't go into the details of building one but have a look at this site that describes all the steps needed to build your very own.

Hmm. What to do with all this unwanted electronic stuff? Let's see: an old computer mouse that no one uses anymore, all the parts from a dead power source, an old power cord, two cds, and a fan cable. Hate to just throw it away... What a waste... (Thoughtfully rubbing chin.)

Well, Flickr member Random42 had all this stuff and he knew just what to do with it: create a Geek Wreath! He says it was inspired by the Geek Wreath featured at Boing Boing. Says the Boing Boing caption for that wreath: "The Geek Wreath is a simple and powerful idea: take a strand of lights and weave it around a wreath of all the goddamned power cables, spare USB cables, obsolete SCSI cables and whatever else you've got cluttering up your home." Awesome!

Now that wreath is fab, but I'm liking Random42's wreath just a tad more. It's a little more festive looking and has a few creative artful touches. Like that old computer mouse. Yep. It's all you could want in a Christmas decoration. It's where geek-thinking meets those traditional Christmas staples: electric lights, wreaths, and whimsy. Nothing goes to waste in this festive creation!

Most of you know metronomes from sitting at the piano as a child grinding through your hour long practice. A metronome as defined by wikipedia is "any device that produces a regulated audible and/or visual pulse, usually used to establish a steady beat, or tempo, measured in beats-per-minute (BPM) for the performance of musical compositions. It is an invaluable practice tool for musicians that goes back hundreds of years." These instructions explain how to build your own metronome. All the materials you need can be found at your local electronics store.

Here's what you need:

1. 555 IC
2. 3x 1K Ohm Resistor
3. 2x 22uF 16V Capacitor
4. 9V Battery
5. 8 Ohms Speaker
6. 250K Ohms Potentiometer

Despite this project's perfect simplicity I still struggle to understand the scheme. Thankfully, he includes pictures with all the instructions and finishes off with a couple of videos. This metronome can be adjusted to various speeds by changing the resistance. Grab your guitar and play along.

Until recently, in terms of science fiction fandom, one of the most uncool things you could possibly be was a Doctor Who fan. Fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, old-school Battlestar Galactica: anyone could mock the Whovians.

So when the original BBC series was cancelled in the early 1990s after a run of several decades, it seemed like the fandom was destined to spiral down into gentle obscurity. The show's low-budget campiness had become a cliché: if you wanted to say that you'd seen something with poor special effects, all you had to do was suggest that it was "like Doctor Who," as though Doctor Who was a synonym for "something by Ed Wood." Sad words for a show that once was, for its first generation of young British fans, something so suspenseful, imaginative, and sometimes frightening that it had to be watched "from behind the sofa."

Much as geekiness in general has become cool in the last decade, Doctor Who is no longer quite the locus of mockery that it once was. A revamped version of the series began to air in the UK in 2005, to great popularity and acclaim, re-energizing the fandom. It currently stars David Tennant as the alien Time Lord who regenerates into a new form in situations that would kill a mortal human, and who travels through time and space in a ship called the TARDIS that resembles an outdated style of London police call box. (The third season of the revamped version is currently airing in the US on the SciFi Network; the second season will be re-aired on BBC America starting this weekend, as will the spin-off series, Torchwood.)

Anything popular enough to have a large online fandom seems to spawn crafts at the speed of light, and Doctor Who has been no exception. The most iconic item is a series of long, colorful scarves worn by the Fourth Doctor in the late 1970s, which we'll delve into after the break. But that's the tip of an iceberg that also includes a number of projects related to the TARDIS (yes, this article is also bigger on the inside than on the outside), and to the Doctor's most famous enemies, the infamously pepper-pot-like Daleks. Ever wanted to eat a Dalek? Well, you'll learn more about that after the break, too... and it won't taste like pepper at all.

Last week, BoingBoing posted a reader's comments about a "DIY bike noisemaker" he'd seen. The apparatus involved a piece of metal, which was wired to a nine-volt battery, which was wired to a small speaker. The metal piece picked up noise from passing chunks of magnet or metal attached to the bike's spokes.

No, I haven't figured out how it's made. I've been scratching my head ever since, with the nagging feeling that both Mr. Wizard (R.I.P.) and my fourth-grade science teacher would be very disappointed in me.

Something electromagnetic is probably going on with this bike noisemaker. I'm not sure exactly what. I suspect that the things wired to the spokes are indeed magnets, and electromagnetic waves, sort of like radio static, are generated as they pass by the needle that's wired to the battery, then sent to the speaker and broadcast... but I don't know for sure. Any other ideas?

This was an impetus to find out more about bike noisemakers, which are actually required in many areas.

Japanese toilets are just... different from American toilets. Although there are many gory details that don't bear discussion here (different bowl designs, the continuing existence of squat toilets, etc.), Americans and Europeans returning from stays in Japan often rhapsodize about the technologically advanced toilets that are common there; if you have any interest in modern Japanese culture, the topic of toilets tends to come up in the early stages of your education. Heated seats, automatic flushes, cleansing sprays, music, you name it: these toilets are feature-laden, but for American homeowners, they're strictly a luxury item.

This did not stop a guy named Joe from rigging his own automatic flushing system, and making a YouTube video about it. Yes, these have been around in public bathrooms for years, but when was the last time you saw one in the average home? This toilet is not truly automatic, as it doesn't have a motion sensor, but it does allow for a slow-flushing toilet to be flushed more quickly. It also tracks the number of flushes. Check it out after the break.