February 2010

The Archives

02.22.10

Mirroring Glass Design Frontiers | (0)
While cruising through chemistry experiments on youtube for inspiration, I came across a recipe for mirroring glass. Peter Esveld and are drawn to this chemical reaction (of silver nitrate and sodium hydroxide) because it produces something permanent and beautiful in a relatively short period of time. Here are two informative videos: Mirrored glass is an expensive material due to its production process but there certainly is no shortage of glass objects. As exciting as mirroring a flask or jar may be to the chemist, they're rather boring objects to be mirrored. We have all the solvents needed and we're waiting on the ...
02.08.10

Phenomenological Design Design Frontiers | (0)
02.01.10

Revisiting the Science Fair Design Frontiers | (0)
For our first assignment, we were to revisit science fair projects. Most of the projects I remember to be pretty lame, so I started scouring chemistry videos on MIT open course ware and youtube. Some of my more interesting finds were mirroring glass with silver nitrate, making glow-stick chemicals and making sodium metal from lye and magnesium. The time constraints meant I wouldn't have time to order the chemicals online. I remembered the videos of non-newtonian fluids that I'd seen. Pete Esveld and I found some cornstarch at the grocery store and mixed up a batch of the curious ...