MacGyver Season 2 Episode 5 Science Notes: Skull + Electromagnet

Decoration with syringe hydraulics

As they decorate for Halloween, the crew builds this skeleton that is controlled by syringes. The basic idea is to use a tube to connect two syringes (the big kind). Fill it with water. When you push or pull on one syringe, it makes the opposite thing happen with the other syringe since water is incompressible.

Here is a nice video showing how to make something like this.

Directional Antenna

In order to track down a dude, MacGyver builds a directional radio antenna. Well, actually he just combines a yagi antenna and a dish antenna-I’m not sure it would work like that, but it looks cool.

I don’t think I should go into the physics of a yagi-it might take a while to explain. However, I can say this: that old style TV antenna you had on your roof? That’s a yagi. It does have a directional dependance on amplitude. That means that if you point it one way, you will get a better signal than pointing it another way.

DIY Thermal Camera

How do you find people in a dark abandoned military base? What about a thermal camera? A “thermal” camera is just like a normal…