These engines work great if you build them right. However, we stress the importance of precision. In particular, make sure the end caps and nozzle are made perfectly, otherwise you’ll have a flare.

The post New Video: How to Make Rocket Engines from Scratch appeared first on Blasted Science.

This is hands-down the easiest way to make a Jacob’s Ladder, period. All you need is an old TV and a death wish.

The actual tutorial in the video is quite subtle, so here’s a written explanation of exactly what we did:

Instructions:

1. Take apart a CRT TV. Be careful! They can implode if you crack the glass.
2. Rip the circuit board out. This will probably require cutting a few wires.
3. Plug it into the wall, and turn it on. You should hear a high-pitched noise. This is the part where you be EXTREMELY careful.
4. Two of the biggest (usually red) wires will arc up to a few centimeters. These are the wires you want. Don’t get your bare skin near them. Keep your left hand behind your back at all times.
5. Hook the two arcing wires up to a pair of metal rods that are in a long V-shape. Voila! That’s all there is to it.

You might have to initiate the spark by putting something metal between the two wires at the bottom.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. A SINGLE MISTAKE WILL KILL YOU. The electricity is powerful enough to instantly kill you. Would not recommend.

The post New Video: How to Make a 20,000 Volt Jacob’s Ladder (Sort of) appeared first on Blasted Science.

Late Condolences to a Brother in Arms

Turns out we aren’t the only idiots in the world. Some other guy decided to copy us and make a Jacob’s ladder. Unlike us, though, they were unable to keep themselves safe. They are no longer with us. Actually, they haven’t been with us for almost a year now. We didn’t get the message until recently.

Homemade Jacob’s Ladder

A young boy, not unlike the members of Blasted Science, built a Jacob’s Ladder in his garage, just like we did. Tragically, he was found dead by his parents.

A 15-year-old boy in Ohio electrocuted himself while attempting a science experiment he saw on YouTube, Reuters reported.

The teenager, Morgan Wojciechowski, tried to conduct a high-voltage experiment, called Jacob’s Ladder, in the garage of his home in northern Ohio. Wojciechowski’s parents found him there on Tuesday, ABC News reported, and emergency crews took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Source

Cause of Death

The article suggests that the reason he died was because many online Jacob’s Ladder tutorials don’t have any warning about how dangerous it is:

It’s easy to find a Jacob’s Ladder tutorial on the internet, and it might not tell you you can die from making it.

That’s a pretty awful thing for people to do. How could they just ignore the danger to their viewer’s lives? That’s downright sinister. A big problem for many tutorials is that the author can unintentionally assume that the viewer already knows how dangerous electrical experiments are.

(Editor’s note: contrary to popular belief, we aren’t guilty of this whatsoever; we know how dangerous Jacob’s Ladders are, but choose to ignore it. Because we’re smart, y’all.)

The Lesson

Don’t be a dumb! Compared to the one in the article, our Jacob’s Ladder had double the voltage and we probably took less precautions. There’s also no chance that we’re more intelligent than our deceased compadre. How did we survive? The answer is simply the combination of our two best traits: sheer luck and incredibly thick, resistive skin.

Blasted Science’s first attempt at a Jacob’s Ladder.

The post Possible Foreshadowing? A Failed Jacob’s Ladder Experiment appeared first on Blasted Science.

Indoctrination

For the first time in our history, we are proud to announce that Blasted Science has adopted a new human.

After hours of intense research, debate, and meditation, the Blasted Science Board of Executives finally approved the entry of Sam Henry into our elite organization as an unpaid intern. Sam is a world-renowned master of videography. This kid has plenty of camera equipment that should speed up our production process.

Sam’s best quality is his undying love for the Motherland. As a direct descendant of Vladimir Lenin, Sam’s lifelong devotion to communism has been proven time and time again. On a good day, he can seize a country’s means of production in less than 3.75 seconds.

Sam’s great-grandfather, Vladimir Lenin. (January 8, 1916)

The Cheese

Born just in time to browse dank memes, Sam is the real deal. He gets the job done the right way (within 4 tries). He will be a source of primary and secondary video editing, supplies, scripting and much, much more.

Sammyboy is the real deal, hence his title. He’s a master of memes; a denizen of the dank. He also knows his way around a camera. He learned the art of film-making from his surrogate parents in Saudi Arabia.

The ancient video guru of Saudi Arabia: Sammel the Camel.

Joining Blasted Science was always my dream, but I never actually expected to achieve it. Words can’t describe my joy. I am honored to be among my childhood heroes. I have made my country proud.

Sam Henry shortly after receiving his official Blasted Science acceptance letter.

…even though we’re paying you nothing.

The post Blasted Science Extends a Warm Welcome to a New Member appeared first on Blasted Science.

We have been hearing way too much about alternative energy sources and random crappy sources that are not efficient at all. We already have a great source, but a few experiences that make us not want to touch it. This great source is nuclear energy.

Like we said earlier you probably don’t like the sound of it, but the truth is nuclear energy is the bomb! Pun very intended. All jokes aside, nuclear energy is cleaner, safer, and more efficient than most people think. People terrified of the unknown. So let’s learn some things to make it known.

How does it work?

Nuclear energy is created through a process called nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is just a fancy word for splitting apart a nuclear atom to acquire the desired superpower. Well half of that is true, I’ll let you decide which half. This energy is in the form of heat which warms up some liquid, Blasted Science prefers Dr. Pepper, but we are only humble rocket scientists. When the Dr. Pepper is hot enough it will start making bubbles and will steam. It must be approximately 212 degrees Fahrenheit or if you live any other place but the United States 100 degrees Celsius. The best way to tell the temperature is to dive straight in it and time how long it takes to burn the flesh. Once you are nice and crispy then you know it is ready.

Safety Stuffs

It is safe, trust us. Don’t question only obey. There are so many safety precautions that we don’t know where to start. So we won’t start. Instead we will loosely quote what pulled up on Google “Nuclear power is safe and continuing to get safer, so stop being a baby you’re fine.” That’s what Google said, so if you don’t trust us then trust them.

Conclusion

We are constantly improving as a species. What is the point in improving barbaric ways of making energy if we could just switch to one that is way better? Blasted Science is not here to tell you that you are wrong, unless of course you are, but we do want to inform you. We think you should form your own opinion, and as long as it is the same as ours you should voice it. 

The post Nuclear Energy – Why Not? appeared first on Blasted Science.

Onion Omega2

The Omega2 is one of those increasingly popular single-board computers. It made its debut on Kickstarter last year. Is it any good?

I’ll be up-front about it. I’m not the target market for the Omega2. It’s similar to a Raspberry Pi Zero, but with one big difference: the Zero is designed for, well, doing a lot of things. The Omega2 is designed for IoT. Blasted Science has absolutely no interest in IoT whatsoever, but the price tag was absolutely irresistible at $5.

Actually, the version I’m reviewing is the $9 “Plus” version. The only difference is that the Plus variant has double the RAM and storage. This review should apply equally well to both models, though. Here’s the spec sheet:

Slower than the Pi Zero, but you don’t buy these for speed, right?

Shipping Woes

For a brief time, I was very disappointed in Onion’s shipping ability. It had been more than a month longer than they promised and I still hadn’t gotten our Omega2. However, it turns out it wasn’t their problem. I had forgotten to fill out the delivery form on Kickstarter. Oops. My bad.

Setup

The Omega2 was much more difficult to setup than I thought. To power it via MicroUSB, you need dock, purchased separately. The dock costs twice as much as the computer itself, which is a big disappointment. If the Pi Zero can incorporate USB and keep the price under $5, it seems inexcusable to make it an add-on feature for $10. Being a tightwad, I passed on buying it and decided to build my own power supply. I already had all the parts except one: a voltage regular. I found a pack of 10 on Ebay for cheap.

The power supply isn’t complicated at all, and is well documented. However, it still gave me a bunch of problems, which once again were likely my fault. The Omega2 would start booting up, but the power light would turn off after 10-20 seconds. After spending hours trying to isolate the problem, I discovered it was my power supply. As a quick hack, I swapped out a broken-out phone charger with 4 AA batteries. Success!

My messy, homemade Omega2 power supply. It’s simpler than it looks.

The setup process is surprisingly simple and well-designed. You interact with the Omega2 via another computer; connecting it to the Omega2 via Wifi. You simply point your web browser at a specific IP address and the setup can begin. All you have to do is give it your Wifi password, and you’re done. Optionally, you can update your device’s firmware and install the “console”. After that, you’re ready to begin using it.

Usage

One advantage the Omega2 has over any Raspberry Pi is that it comes with 32Mb of storage (64Mb for the Plus); this allows it to run a full Linux installation out of the box, no microSD card required. While it’s by no means a sizable amount of storage, it’s enough for basic functionality. Fortunately, it does have a microSD slot.

The underside of the Omega2

You can interact with the Omega2 via SSH or serial, but I didn’t try either one. The simplest method of interaction is via the same IP address used for setup. If you choose to install the console, you get a good-looking web interface loaded with a few useful apps.

Kinda reminds me of Ubuntu

To reiterate, I have no interest in actually using this device for IoT. I poked around the various apps, but have no real use for any of it. I did install Python and test a few lines of code, but that’s been the extent of my testing so far.

The Bottom Line

The Omega2 is a well-designed, low-cost Raspberry Pi competitor, although its cheap price rises quickly with the addition of basically-required accessories. It’s also pretty good at doing IoT things. Probably. I wouldn’t know. But it’s cool. It made a fine addition to my collection.

A pretty snazzy little machine. I bet it works just fine.

Various accessories for the Omega2 can be purchased at the official store.

The post Onion Omega2 Review – a Pi Zero with a Cool Trick appeared first on Blasted Science.

As an official member of “The Media,” we are legally obligated to share every single one of our political opinions with you.

Blasted Science has, thus far, remained politically neutral on every issue. However, it is impossible for a media organization to ignore its conscience forever. There are quite a few controversial issues in America at the moment, and Blasted Science has a strong opinion about every single one.

Where We Stand on the Issues

Gun Control

Guns should be banned. However, it should be legally required for everyone over the age of eight to carry a class IIIb laser weapon on them at all times and its use should be entirely unregulated.

Health Care

Every component of the human body should be replaced with a robotic counterpart. The extra durability this provides should reduce the need of health care. At that point, heck, let the government foot the bill. It’ll probably cost like eight bucks a month total.

Abortion

Human children are annoying and should be replaced with mechanical versions as soon as possible.

Foreign Policy

Blasted Science refuses to recognize as legitimate any country that meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Has the letter A in its name.
• Is smaller than Texas.
• Has a leader with at least one X chromosome.
• The local dialect pronounces the word “robot” like row-baht instead of row-bit.
• Is purple on any popular world map.

Homeland Security

A government should never spy on its citizens. However, it is acceptable as a hobby if the NSA ever gets bored.

Free Trade

Free trade is fine. Great, even. So long as it’s the United States that’s getting the stuff for free. It’d be a lousy deal if we had to pay for the goods. Let Canada do that.

Conclusion

It should come as no surprise to intelligent readers that, based on the information above, Blasted Science is a proud supporter of the Transhumanist Party.

All hail Zoltan Istvan, the dark mage and founder of the Transhumanist Party.

We political folk at Blasted Science be liking the idea of people robots. That is all.

The post Our Political Agenda appeared first on Blasted Science.

This update is a couple months late. We noticed.

The post New Video: Blasted Science Documentary appeared first on Blasted Science.

5. Spaghetti

A thermic lance is a heavy-duty demolition tool that burns steel alloys and aluminum in pressurized oxygen to create temperatures hot enough to cut… anything, really. Instead of burning steel, this do-it-yourself version uses spaghetti as fuel.

Spaghetti may not seem particularly flammable, but with pure oxygen just about everything becomes a pyromaniac’s dream. With just an oxygen tank, aluminum foil, and a small handful of spaghetti, you can make a thermic lance that burns hot enough to melt through concrete.

Thermic lances are used in construction and demolition to cut large pieces of steel. This homemade version can get hot enough to melt metal. All you have to do is hook up one side of a small hose to an oxygen tank and attach a small amount of spaghetti wrapped in aluminum foil to the other. Igniting the spaghetti in the oxygen-rich tube produces a crazy-hot flame, creating the cheapest steel-melting lance you’ll ever see.

It is worth noting that Blasted Science has constructed their own thermic lance. However, ours never runs out of oxygen. Instead of a tank, we hooked it up to an oxygen generator for longer burning.

4. Ammonia

Ammonia itself can be dangerous (inhalation not recommended), but when combined with iodine, the extremely volatile explosive Nitrogen Triiodide is formed. Touching it with just about anything is enough to make it explode.

All you need is ammonium hydroxide, easily purchased as a household cleaner, and iodine crystals, easily purchased online. Simply dissolve the iodine crystals in the ammonium hydroxide and wait a few hours. Pour the resulting liquid over filter paper to collect the explosive. Be careful: even though the compound is more stable while in solution, it can still potentially explode while dissolved.

Nitrogen Triiodide has no practical use, due to its extreme sensitivity to friction, but it can certainly be entertaining. Be extremely careful with these crystals; the slightest touch and you can kiss your fingers goodbye. It’s recommended that you start small, and work your way up to bigger amounts once you know what you’re doing.

Blasted Science attempted to make Nitrogren Triiodide, but our iodine samples weren’t nearly pure enough for it to work.  Sticking live wires into a bottle filled with iodized salt water probably wasn’t the best way to obtain iodine.

3. Etch-a-Sketch

This common toy is loaded with powdered aluminum. Aluminum, sadly, doesn’t burn. Unless it’s combined with rust, that is.

Mixing powdered aluminum and iron oxide (rust) in the correct ratio, three parts iron oxide to one part aluminum, creates thermite. Thermite isn’t explosive, but burns at insanely high temperatures and produces iron. However, it also requires insanely high temperatures to ignite; a normal flame won’t do it. Using a sparkler is an easy way to get it started. Never ignite thermite near yourself; it spews molten metal all over the place. You don’t want to be anywhere near it once it’s lit.

After the time of writing (this list has been in limbo for a long time), Grant Thompson and Cody’s Lab successfully created thermite from an Etch-a-Sketch. The video from Cody’s Lab goes into greater detail on their project.

Thermite burns at well above 4,000° Fahrenheit: hot enough to melt through things not usually considered meltable, such as dirt. Good luck finding a container that can hold it. Most commonly, ceramic containers are used, such as flowerpots. Surprisingly, it is 100% legal to own and use. Have fun.

2. Drain Cleaner

Drain cleaner, aluminum foil, and a pop bottle are used to make what is called a “Drano bomb.” Combining drain cleaner (sodium hydroxide) and aluminum foil produces hydrogen gas. If the reaction occurs in a sealed bottle, the pressure will increase until the bottle explodes.

Using drain cleaner to make bottle bombs can be very dangerous. The explosion can cause chemical burns and the loss of fingers. For this device in particular, please be mature. These bombs are often left in people’s yards and mailboxes, and can cause severe damage to people and property. Be extremely careful with explosives and never use them to harm anyone or anything.

Alternatively, try stretching a balloon over the mouth of the bottle. The balloon will fill with hydrogen gas, which is lighter than helium and extremely flammable. Try lighting the balloon with a match, even a small balloon will make a sizeable explosion. You’ll definitely want to wear thick gloves while lighting it.

Blasted Science’s hydrogen bomb in the making

Blasted Science can confirm that this works very well. Unfortunately, our video has become corrupted, and our only evidence is the single photograph above.

1. Lantern Battery

Using a power supply built from microwave oven transformers, the carbon rods in lantern batteries happen to work perfectly as electrodes in a miniature electric arc furnace hot enough to turn metal and rocks into molten goop.

The entire process is detailed by Grant Thompson in one of his most dangerous DIY projects to date. This project is a bit more complicated than the rest: you’ll need to use the transformers from a pair of microwaves to convert the electricity from your house into a current capable of forming an arc. But the effort is well worth it. With a couple of microwaves, pliers, carbon rods, and a block of firebrick, you can make a forge capable of melting just about everything imaginable.

However, all that power comes at the price of serious danger. This is easily the most dangerous item on this list. You’ll be dealing with electricity, extremely high temperatures, toxic fumes, and molten metal. Because of this, take appropriate safety measures. This project is not for the faint of heart.

Once again, Blasted Science has constructed their own version of this. However, it deserves more than just a mention in a list. Expect more information on our arc furnace in the future.

Just to prove we aren’t making this up

The post Top 5 More Household Items to Turn into Weapons appeared first on Blasted Science.

Steganography

For absolutely no reason whatsoever, we at Blasted Science feel compelled to blab about these two steganography tools we really like.

What is steganography?

Steganography is the art of concealing a message. If you want to send someone a secret message that no one else can read, you essentially have two options:

• Encode the message so that it can only be read by someone who knows how to decode it.
• Hide the message so that it can only be read by someone who knows it exists.

The latter method is knows as steganography. Nowadays, there’s a whole bunch of free steganography software available online, and Blasted Science has tried just about all of them. After a few hours of stumbling through sketchy sites plastered with fake download buttons, we’ve managed to find a few good ones. We’ve had a lot of fun playing with steganography. In fact, Blasted Science may have used it a couple of times on this site (cough). How did we do it? Mostly we used the two programs below.

Hide in Picture

Hide in Picture is a tool for hiding files inside GIF images. It’s pretty much the only software we’ve found that works with GIF files (most only work with PNG).

Xiao Steganography

Xiao Steganography is a similar tool, but hides files inside of WAV audio and BMP images.

These programs are very simple to use, and have proven invaluable to Blasted Science. We highly recommend trying these bad boys out if you ever stumble upon anything weird on our site.

The post Blasted Science Officially Endorses This Software appeared first on Blasted Science.