Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 35: Playing with Fire: The Danger Issue

Danger! Danger! The very word puts us on notice. As it is designed to do. Don't touch that. Peril ahead. Proceed with caution. But the threat of danger can also be a trap, holding us back from experiencing many wonders of the world, trying new things, going where no one has gone before.

In MAKE Volume 35, we confront danger within the world of making, and how to be smarter about risk. We examine safe practices for makers, and we look at the illusion of danger vs. real danger, how to use common sense, and how to educate yourself to work more safely and productively.

We're bringing plenty of fire, lightning bolts, and rocket's red glare, too. Guest contributor and celebrated pyromaniac William Gurstelle, author of the best-selling Backyard Ballistics and Whoosh, Boom, Splat, will show us how to make a rocket out of sugar, a tornado out of fire, and a cannon out of dry ice. And Arc Attack member Craig Newswanger shows us how to build the awesome Six-Pack Tesla Coil, made with a beer-bottle capacitor, that’ll throw 15” electrical arcs.

Other fun, and 100% safety-approved projects include:

• How to make a phonograph out of Lego bricks
• A light-up hoodie from Electroluminescent (EL) wire
• An impressive "high-gain" home media projection screen using little more than latex house paint and sandblasting glass