What Can You Create at Home with a Sense of Achievement?

[Glennage]

Creating your own...

Not sure where to put this so i'll stick it here!

I am looking for things to create at home. At the moment I'm currently working on a Project called Itty Bitty Telescope. Creating my own scope in other words. I am also creating my own wind turbine & radio satellite to listen and monitor Jupiter & the Sun.

These are inexpensive to do and also great fun with a sense of achievement (when they work)

So what else fun & in-expensive can you create at home?

P.S - Does not have to just be about Astronomy. Anything else to do with Physics is allowed :)

 

[CompuChip]

I'm not creative, but curious.

(IOW: Subscription post).

 

[redargon]

There were some college students who sent up a weather balloon with a camera and gps attached to take pictures of the Earth from near space altitudes, that cost them less than $150 apparently. It's called project icarus http://space.1337arts.com/

My mini project at the moment is learning how to perform computational fluid dynamics simulations using only open source software (Openfoam, salome, linux etc.) It only costs time (and maybe a decent PC if you don't have one).

 

[Glennage]

Hello Redargon - I seen that Video on youtube, good accomplishment for the students, impressive. I would like to design something like that myself, that would be fun.

What is this Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation you speak of? What does it do? I have a very good PC running various OS of the Linux Platforms so it might interest me :)

 

[Nebozilla]

Rockets. Love them haha

 

[leroyjenkens]

I'd like to build my own telescope. One strong enough to at least see the craters on the moon clearly. How cool would it have been to be using a really strong telescope to see astronauts land on the moon.

There were some college students who sent up a weather balloon with a camera and gps attached to take pictures of the Earth from near space altitudes, that cost them less than $150 apparently. It's called project icarus http://space.1337arts.com/

I saw a better one where these guys sent up a video camera so you can see video of it instead of just still pictures.

 

[turbo]

Here is a write-up I posted on another site (one dedicated to astronomy). I like to tinker, and I'm frugal (OK, I'm really cheap!) so this was a great little project.

http://forum.ourdarkskies.com/index.php?showtopic=16373

 

[redargon]

Hello Redargon - I seen that Video on youtube, good accomplishment for the students, impressive. I would like to design something like that myself, that would be fun.

What is this Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulation you speak of? What does it do? I have a very good PC running various OS of the Linux Platforms so it might interest me :)

BIG Question! But I'll try give you a short answer: CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is a way of simulating (using a PC and software) the flow of fluids around or in objects. Usually, fluid dynamics equations cannot be easily solved for complexer flows, so we break up the entire flow field around an object into lots of tiny pieces (called a mesh) and then solve the equations for those tiny pieces (which is easier) and then we combine all the tiny results to end up with the final total result. This can be used to find, for example, the flowrate of a gas through a tube, or the drag on wing, and even give you the ability to view what would happen inside a the cylinder of a piston engine as the gas is injected and ignited.

for more info look here: http://www.cfd-online.com

It's not really building something in the physical sense, but it definitely gives a sense of acheivement when you've successully drawn a 3D model, meshed it and simulated it and you get all the data you were hoping for and some really pretty pictures too. :)

 

[Glennage]

BIG Question! But I'll try give you a short answer: CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is a way of simulating (using a PC and software) the flow of fluids around or in objects. Usually, fluid dynamics equations cannot be easily solved for complexer flows, so we break up the entire flow field around an object into lots of tiny pieces (called a mesh) and then solve the equations for those tiny pieces (which is easier) and then we combine all the tiny results to end up with the final total result. This can be used to find, for example, the flowrate of a gas through a tube, or the drag on wing, and even give you the ability to view what would happen inside a the cylinder of a piston engine as the gas is injected and ignited.

for more info look here: http://www.cfd-online.com

It's not really building something in the physical sense, but it definitely gives a sense of acheivement when you've successully drawn a 3D model, meshed it and simulated it and you get all the data you were hoping for and some really pretty pictures too. :)

That does sound pretty cool - I know nothing about it, but I'm willing to learn and give it a try, think I will visit that site first to get to grips with what it exactly does and means. But thanks anyways, looks good, and best of luck to you :)

Here is a write-up I posted on another site (one dedicated to astronomy). I like to tinker, and I'm frugal (OK, I'm really cheap!) so this was a great little project.

Haha, that is actually good, and best of all really cheap! Definatly going to try that one!

Just a quick question...How far up can you get a camera if you send it upwards? Like if I build something at home, strap a camera to it and send it high into the sky. Is there anything you can do to send it into space? And it just keeps going? So like it takes pictures every so often and transmits the data back to Earth. That would be seriously cool.

 

[Artman]

I'd like to build my own telescope. One strong enough to at least see the craters on the moon clearly. How cool would it have been to be using a really strong telescope to see astronauts land on the moon.

To my knowledge there are no Earth based telescopes with clear enough resolution to allow you to see man made objects on the moon.

Here is a site for inexpensive lenses and such to build your own telescope, cheap. I've built five or six.

http://www.surplusshed.com/new.html"

I also built a battery powered guitar amplifier for less than $50.00, just takes some soldering skills.