What is it?
Have you ever tried to electrocute a hot dog? Wondered how to make a robot out of a toothbrush, watch battery and phone-pager motor? Seen a cantaloupe melon and thought, “Hmm, I could make this look like the Death Star from the original Star Wars films”? If you have not, but you would like to — preferably as soon as you can find a pager motor — then this is the site for you. The Evil Mad Scientist Project (EMSP) blog is packed full of ideas for unusual, silly and frequently physics-related creations that bring science out of the laboratory and into kitchens, backyards and tool sheds.
Who writes the blog?
The main authors are the intensely creative husband-and-wife team of Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman. A former physicist who now works at a California-based engineering firm, Oskay is responsible for most of the electronics-themed entries. Edman, meanwhile, studied classical Greek, which she says “prepared her well” for a career working with scientists and engineers. Her posts tend to focus on topics like fractal biscuits and LED origami. Other contributors include Edman’s young son Chris Brookman and the family’s two cats; the site also lists several like-minded “honorary mad scientists” who work independently on similar projects.
Can you describe a typical project?
Any site that contains both Dalek-shaped pumpkins and an interactive LED kitchen table is going to be hard to summarize, but there are a few common threads. A huge number of projects involve nifty things to do with LEDs, and a sizeable minority require users to play with their food in ways that would make even the most innovative chefs gasp (edible googly eyes, anyone?). One intriguing idea that grew out of the site about a year ago is the Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk, a kind of round-robin letter for the digital age in which participants receive and pass on a small box of miscellaneous components in the confident hope that someone else will find them useful.
How often is it updated?
The authors aim to post new projects every Wednesday, but most weeks contain two or three new items. As of March 2009, there were 81 pages of archived entries stretching back to early 2006, so if recent projects do not interest you, there are plenty of others to look at instead. Older posts are semi-organized into topics like field trips, projects and “Play With Your Food”, although there is considerable overlap between categories.
Who is it aimed at?
Fans of science fairs and TV programmes like the UK’s Scrapheap Challenge will find much to appreciate on this site. The EMSP is part of looseknit network of “Makers” — people interested in creating new things in a way that fuses art, science and engineering — and this well-illustrated blog offers a user-friendly introduction to this community. Most of the food-related projects and some of the simpler electrical ones could be made by children with a bit of adult help. Others require a working knowledge of basic electronics and specialist equipment. A few, like the electrocuted hot dog, are downright dangerous, and should be attempted by dedicated tinkerers only — but everyone can appreciate the results from a safe distance.
