A year of failed experiments

Over the years I've worked on a lot of projects, and many of them never made it onto the channel. Looking at a few of my failed or otherwise shelved projects today!
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==== Misc ====
CAD model for the XY Flexure stage: www.thingiverse.com/thing:569...
==== Timeline ====
0:00 Intro
1:05 VAST Project
1:56 Nanodiamonds
2:49 Electrochemical Machining
3:24 Pulse Electroplating
3:52 Ceramic SLA
4:47 Laser sintering Silicon Carbide
5:23 Microthruster
6:40 Focus Stacking 3D Profilometry
7:36 Overly complicated Flexures Stage
8:00 Growing KDP Crystals
8:53 Growing WS2 Monolayers
10:00 Paper VdW Transistors
10:35 Creepy Stop Motion
11:03 Nanoparticle Glass
11:33 3D Printed Projection Lithography
12:02 Super-hydrophobic Coating
13:06 Metal FDM Printing
14:15 Polymer Concrete
14:57 Ultrafast Sintering

[@NeonVisual]

Builds hydrophobic nano coating, accidentally creates the world's smallest sponge.

[@BreakingTaps]

BRB starting a micro sponge company

[@NeonVisual]

@@BreakingTaps 🤣

[@bit0fun]

That would actually be a useful thing though; could make super absorbent cloths

[@thomasnoble5268]

Try sanding the metal before the building the coating.

[@sebimoe]

@@thomasnoble5268 that would be very spongy

[@RiffZifnab]

Thanks for being brave enough to share some of your failures with us. Hope to see some of these get finished whenever they come to fruition. (:

[@NeonVisual]

Many of the most ground braking inventions and discoveries happen accidentally. More failures please!

[@tylercarrington4369]

Showing failures reminds everyone that technological advansement is only met with a mountain of failures. Thanks for showing your learning experences !

[@bryan.conrad]

It was great to get a peak at the projects left unfinished. Every creative person has at least few (more probably, many) half-done projects on a shelf somewhere. Mine give me little pangs of grief when I think about having left them incomplete, so it was nice to know even someone as prolific and motivated as you has left a few that way in favor of more interesting ones.

[@vizionthing]

I think if we asked enough people this is actually the norm, it is for me.

[@karlharvymarx2650]

It is nice to get a reminder that I'm not the only one with unfinished projects. Watching a lot of youtube videos usually doesn't help since it can create the illusion of people who always finish everything and in the end it almost always works. I tend to work like a mad man on a project for about a week to a month before some other cool idea sidetracks me. On the bright side, I have at least gotten to the point that I often return to them within a few years and eventually get done enough Oh, and I'm the only one without exactly the right materials, parts and tools for the job. I'm the only one with stuff literally made of duct tape, magnets, scrap wire and balloons, and junk I happen to have laying around or dig out of the garbage can.

[@edgeeffect]

I think I ONLY have unfinished projects. ;)

[@sietuuba]

@@edgeeffect I'm at my most productive when I'm sidetracking myself to abandon yet another avenue of half an idea.

[@ARVash]

Honestly some of this is almost more informative than other videos. I feel like people often don't share their failures, but really often failures are successful experiments. I wonder if you actually need a vacuum, or if you could just flood it with an inert gas, or even just CO2.

[@TaranovskiAlex]

You, "Stuff Made Here", as well as Colin Furze are basically unreachable in terms of dedication and labor poured into your projects!

[@stefansynths]

I know I'm not the only one who doesn't finish many of their projects, but it's really heartening to hear about your abandoned projects. It's like how influencers only present the glamorous side of their life, leading to unrealistic expectations in their followers. Thanks for sharing!

[@sietuuba]

Frankly, every single abandoned experiment here is impressive on their own already. Much respect for giving us a peek!

[@laststand6420]

Most people pretend to be smarter than they are. This guy pretends to be normal, and is one of the smartest you tubers I have ever found.

[@BreakingTaps]

🥰

[@tekjess_]

The amount of knowledge and experience you gained just from attempting these projects is amazing. Keep up the amazing stuff!

[@Wreaktifier]

Failure is inherently more interesting than instant success. Failed experiments are just as important as successful ones. Good starting points for folks standing on your shoulders.

[@mckseal]

These are some brilliant ideas. I found it curious how excited I got each time you introduced one - but can absolutely see why they became hard to complete.

[@cardrivingdude]

"Every failure is a step to success" - William Whewell Thanks for sharing.

[@JasonCummer]

Its nice to see things others have tried and failed at. It makes me feel less bad about the projects I am still working to get right. Certainly tricky to get some papers replicated even if they seem straight forward

[@thedamnone]

Research and innovation is the art of gathering data from failures.

[@LucGendrot]

I'd personally love to see more of the ceramic and metal printing projects! I've seen a few other channels try their hand at it to mixed results, but I think with your attention to detail you could really nail down a good procedure, which would be awesome for the DIY community!

[@adelinyoungmark1929]

that ultrafast sintering sounds quite interesting, especially since it can get to such temperatures so quickly.

[@BreakingTaps]

It's a really cool technique! And such a simple setup too... if I was being less cheap, a simple glovebox with inert gas would be pretty easy to knock together. I just didn't want to pay for the argon 😁

[@dandan-gf4jk]

@@BreakingTaps Can you shed some more light on that carbon felt? Is that the same thing as those carbon filters for solder fume extractors?

[@sevendesign1805]

The world doesn't know how lucky it is to have you on it!

[@dexio85]

Sharing your failures is as important as sharing your successes. This is very interesting material and kudos for sharing it with us.

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

I love it how you tried to create a super-hydrophobic surface, followed the protocol exactly and ended up with a super-hydrophyllic one :D

[@smellsofbikes]

There is great value in "this didn't work" so other people don't follow that path. These are all still really interesting projects. Your flexture creations never fail to be inspirational, even if they don't work the way you wanted. The NLO crystals are really cool. It'd sure be neat to do a DIY freq doubled laser.

[@BreakingTaps]

Thanks! I was shy about sharing them individually, but figured as a collection there was enough interesting stuff here for people to enjoy. Agreed about the crystals! I'd love to revisit that one, even have some new designs drawn up just haven't gotten around to doing it. Need to make basically everything out of glass or plastic, maintain two temperature zones (cooler in the crystal chamber, warmer elsewhere) so that it only crystalizes in the chamber, filtration to remove contaminants and seed crystals and stiring/agitation. Turned into a much bigger project than I expected at the time 😅

[@lordsqueak]

When doing projects on your own, knowing what doesn't work is probably more important, than knowing what does work.

[@fikr1234]

It's easy to forget how many failures are behind each success when we watch these carefully curated YT videos. Awesome to get a peek behind the scenes. :)

[@beautifulsmall]

Boxes of projects, image stacking was very new in 2010, helicon focus, i had a free version as a tester and gave them some fly stacks I had made on a 2D rotary stage tried to hack a Cannon lens. no info and failed. metal epoxy for lathe bed repair, W2S moglice recipie. filled a cheap pillar drill stem with concrete and rebar. 3000C, excited. Thanks for sharing all those paths of facinating ideas. we cant go down them all. I feel I share several.

[@Molb0rg]

Nice overview, interesting on its own Vote for ceramic sintering

[@Lasselpk]

Knowing some of the amazing projects you have achieved, it is really comforting to know that far from all of your projects succeed. This makes me want to take on some of my own semi failed projects. Thank you 😃

[@stanstocker8858]

I bet you learned something slick with every one of these postponed or "overcome by events" projects. Happy New Year!

[@andymouse]

Great end of year look back ! we all have projects that don't quite get there !....cheers.

[@digus]

So awesome of you to share this. Certainly makes me feel better about some of my own projects.

[@Borgedesigns]

Im so envious of channels that can make good content out of projects that ultimately don't work, but I just cant bring myself to make a full video about a failed experiment

[@BreakingTaps]

Honestly that's one of the reason these projects all languished in my archive. Never felt like I could put together a video about any of them individually. But a big collection like this seemed interesting enough, and I'm pretty happy how it turned out. Would highly recommend as a way to turn some of those failed projects into content!

[@thaphreak]

I love all of these. Thanks for sharing, it's nice to know you are only human as well and like so many of us, not every project gets done.

[@bowieinc]

So, this was one of my favorites. I loved the rapid fire exposure to so many different technologies I was unaware of.

[@lumotroph]

Wow. These are amazing. And great format! I really like the cutting room floor style. Inspirational work 😊

[@TheBookDoctor]

It is not the failures, nor even the breadth of endeavors that marks your level of technical skill, but rather that you've tried all this crazy stuff and are _still alive_.

[@DavidLindes]

FWIW, I'd definitely be interested in seeing more about the VAST project (1:05). Telescopes are cool; controlled motion is cool; multiple apertures is fascinating... More please? :)

[@campbellmorrison8540]

Wow that is a serious list of starters, Im thinking Pulse plating sounds the most applicable to me but honestly they are all fascinating. Love your work, Merry Christmas

[@adrianperez3375]

Thanks. I loved it. Showing the failures is so important. So much more inspiring than just the success.

[@ericlotze7724]

This seems like a good format to show all the failed projects one did, without having to make full videos for each one. If i ever get started doing videos I’ll probably try and do something like this, also I’ll try and make sure @TheThoughtEmporium and others see this too (if they don’t already see it due to subscriptions lol) (also *if i can get my discord account running again* )

[@paulpease8254]

Time, money and ADHD is a heck of a combination 😂 Thanks for sharing.

[@paulpease8254]

Have you identified any factors that make it more or less likely that you will finish a project? For me, the biggest driver is usually achieving something novel. If I am struggling through a challenging project and it feels like I’m putting in a ton of effort just to make a worse version of something that’s been done before, I start to lose my motivation. But if I am working on a novel discovery or application, it really becomes a motivational driver for me. That, and a nice hard deadline 😂

[@LuxGamer16]

I'm in a group for ECM, where we print mandrels to rifle and chamber a stock of metal (42cr and similar). Theres a dude that is currently working on a EDM apparatus that has xyz control with a hole accuracy of 0.1-0.05mm. Still early prototype, but very impressive

[@asmotaku]

Oooh... A little treasure trove you got there ! 🤩 Nice !

[@asmotaku]

@@BreakingTaps5 Well color me NOT convinced. 😅

[@TaranovskiAlex]

19! 19 projects! I wish I had so much mental energy for things like that...

[@Alexander_Sannikov]

I liked most of the projects, but growing optically interesting crystals got me tempted the most. heck, even just demonstrating birefringence and optical anisotropy is cool.

[@JoshuaRosaaen]

Wow...I sure wish these dropped ones were in series. Great stuff...hoping to see more if this as it progresses. Thank you for sharing these learnings and explorations.

[@Veptis]

I hope this becomes a (bi) annual roundup to showcase how many abandoned project don't make it in a year

[@Sokol_]

Thank you for all of your work and sharing it with us.

[@denysvisser]

Great work. Cool to see the path the unfinished projects put you on. Sometimes I wondered how you came to you next project. The micro thruster looks so cool! It out be visually fun as well.

[@Anya-Prime]

This is fantastic. Failures are sometimes more interesting that successful projects even if they aren’t nearly as satisfying. I’d watch a much longer video about these projects if you ever expand on them. Thank you for having the courage to post these unsuccessful concepts you attempted. I barely understood half of them and wouldn’t have been able to even attempt the remainder so you’re still doing amazing things with these

[@Choscura]

on the ECM thing, I can comment that the people doing some of the 3d printed gun stuff have figured out that you want to minimize surface area of electrode in contact with work piece, and run the discharge voltage in pulses, and you'll need to experiment with your setup to figure out the ideal hz rate for the pulses. people are starting to experiment with this to drill holes for barrel, besides the ECM rifling process that's out there. (yes there's how-to's on rifling a barrel with ECM, on Odysee.)

[@tomblough3257]

Joanna Aizenberg's group at Harvard has done a lot with super hydrophobic surfaces. The porous surface texture is used to retain a fluorocarbon like Krytox, which then results in the hydrophobic surface.

[@Tattlebot]

I was reading about nanostructure eyeglass lenses. The hydrophobic sample worked well in rejecting droplets, but it would rapidly fog with condensation. Counterintuitively, the hydrophilic sample worked best, it dissipated both droplets and condensation into the the nanostructure, eliminating liquid lensing.

[@mitchstilborn]

Definitely want to see the VAST completed

[@hovant6666]

Yellow chemistry - a subtle Explosions & Fire shoutout

[@saukhaven]

Thanks for the inspiration! I share many similar interests with my own work space full of shelved projects. You have inspired me to revive a couple. Maybe my nickel/graphite fabric supercapacitor or an adaptive sparse aperture telescope...Life's too short!

[@samk2407]

I really really want to see the telescope. I'm super into astrophotography, and it'd be so cool to see a hobbyist project like that.

[@DerekWoolverton]

Love that speedy sintering.

[@dav1dsm1th]

I find all your videos extremely interesting - and look forward to seeing any progress on these unfinished projects (or anything else that gets your attention). I can't help thinking that a collaboration between you and Ben, over at Applied Science, would create some amazing content. I live in hope 🙂

[@maz3808]

There's an interesting paper published in SPIE Journal of Photonics for Energy. It details a simple DIY radiative cooling design that can could prove useful in solar energy projects or thermal reflectance. The paper titled "Do-it-yourself radiative cooler as a radiative cooling standard and cooling component for device design"

[@mattheww9656]

3:58 Designing and printing chess pieces - gifting sets as gifts. I’ve found my use case for 3D printing.

[@TaranovskiAlex]

Watched just the first minute so far - man, you do awesome job anyways, 99% of the startups fail, and that's OK! The main thing is to start doing things and try as much as you can to be consistent. Never feel bad is something doesn't work out as expected, many people don't even ever start...

[@derrekvanee4567]

You had a Tbi right? Had a stroke 2016 and havnt done any machining or 3d printing or ee or digital art:games since. Keep on chugging bro love seeing these to add to my maybe one day pile

[@Danny.._]

the virtual foundry now sells filament for traditional 3d printers for sintering into ceramic, aluminum, copper, bronze, stainless steel, titanium, and borosilicate glass

[@Danny.._]

oh, i was saying this in response to the part about sla printing, but later in the video you mentioned metal fdm printing, so i guess you already know about it lol

[@BreakingTaps]

Haha yep! That filament was from Virtual Foundry (I should probably put a note in the comments about that). Grabbed a few different filaments I'd like to try out at some point. 17-4, borosillicate and another one I'm forgetting. Really excited to see how well they work with some tweaking!

[@dandan-gf4jk]

7:12 this is the most amazing I've seen from you so far. It really brings out the thickness of the trace. oops, you even mention it's not afm 😅

[@sosaysthecaptain5580]

I built a reasonably successful focus stacking profilometer a few years ago. It produced a ton of erroneous noise, and I had issues getting illumination even, but overall not terrible. I used openCV for focus detection

[@andrewowens5653]

If I could recover only 10% of the money I spent on materials for failed projects and incomplete projects I would be a rich man now!

[@BreakingTaps]

Ain't that the truth!

[@besenyeim]

I like the last one. I hope it becomes a real video.

[@timvw01]

Very cool, your garage must be huge

[@latentdiscourse4357]

Recently I tried drilling and tapping a ball screw nut but kept breaking the taps I have. Couldn’t help but always think of your KZbin!

[@winsrrow8125]

the last one seems really cool to me

[@edgeeffect]

I loved the old thumbnail with the "I'm such a failure" pose. ;)

[@BreakingTaps]

Hah, I was afraid it was a bit too dramatic (and inching towards a "youtuber face") 😄 I might switch it back, we'll see!

[@apathyreview3964]

You're a classic ENFP personality type. Good starters poor finishers. I know this for a reason lol.

[@lordsqueak]

Wow , that super hydrophilic method might be perfect for building heatpipes for cooling. Hmm, I wonder if you could make micro channels that sucks up water or some liquid, super heat it to produce a refillable, microthruster.

[@Fordallas]

I wouldn't call these failures. As an industrial laser scientist, I'd stress the importance of shelving projects until new ideas/insights come along. Happens all the time at my employer, sometimes for decades at a time. I'll admit I'm now thinking about trying to making some KDP. BTW, I started using a 100 keV electon lithography machine a few days after your video :)

[@Zeuskabob1]

Very interesting video! It's really cool that you've given us a look into your various ideas that haven't panned out yet. I noticed that most of your projects seem to be "in-progress", and it seems that over the next while as your equipment gets more capable you might be able to return to some of them easily. One project I'm interested in is the microthruster. While a fascinating application of your expertise, it seems to lack the kind of propellant efficiency required for satellite deployment. Did you have a plan for how to remove the excess mass from your microthrusters so they'd be more space/fuel efficient?

[@derrekvanee4567]

Also I hear yellow chemistry is bad but Australia doesn't know that yet go tell them how amzzing yellow chemicals are bro!

[@patnutoris4054]

absolutely very interesting

[@dewanpretorius]

Growning kdp crystals: Maybe you could somehow apply a charge to stop impurities from getting close or maybe even use it somehow to filter the mix beforehand? Super Hydrophobic coating: maybe make the coat thinner? Metal fdm printing: could an innert gas be used to fill the cube beforehand ( and maybe keep it free of oxygen after being printed), or to replace the in/ around the furnace? (making it work even if it's not a perfect vacuum). Hope this helps

[@dewanpretorius]

Oh and loved the video. Feels like there's so much to be learned from a failure (sometimes even more than a success).

[@paranoiia8]

I know that Ceramic SLA is a black hole but how about similar ideas, like adding different materials to resin print, like just go full chaotic and throw everything to resin and try to bake, boil, laser, sing, dance, flamethrow it and just see what came out :D

[@kevinm413]

This was an awesome video! Thank you for showing the forgotten projects that either fizzled out or led to different projects altogether! The breadth of physical and chemical processes that you attempt to replicate/learn about is truly impressive. I was especially excited to see experiments with 3D printing ceramic materials. My day job involves the end-use of bone grafts- some of them being ceramics (CaPO4, hydroxyapetite, and nano-scale silicates). There is a group out of Ukraine who (despite the war) have been developing 3D printed bone grafts that (because of macro and microstructure) have inherent biologic properties. I'm not sure what your "ex-biologist" background is, but you might find it interesting. Check out A.D.A.M. bioprinting.

[@rockyrivermushrooms529]

Just found your channel and you have a ton of interesting videos.

[@andrejradulovic5666]

Your videos are so great, enjoying watching them, it is so relaxing, keep doing them! Do the video about failure projects too, there is no grades on youtube :D Lots of people do not have chance to do experiments, including my self, so by watching your videos it is like we are doing them, so including failures will be even better experience...

[@StormBurnX]

The ceramic SLS is interesting because at least one company has been making off-the-shelf ceramic resin for... at least a few years now? @Integza has been using it to make miniature rocket engine chambers, nozzles, etc, it's quite fascinating!

[@bearnaff9387]

This was a neat video. If you eve get interested in the microrocketry again, try dropping an e-mail to Dr. Adam London, at Astra - an aerospace company. It's been a few decades, but when he was at MIT he was working on lithographic etching of a MEMS pump and engine for chip-scale liquid fueled rocketry. AFAIK, this did not result in a viable product, but I have to imagine that he is both interested in the subject and has stories/ideas/suggestions to share. (I do not know Dr. London, I just remembered his work at MIT.)

[@JosephSalmans]

thank you so much.

[@fejfo6559]

I bet a lot of these still have interesting science to share even if it didn't quite work.

[@gavendb]

this guy's failed projects are more impressive than my successful ones...he's doing real stuff while i was busy making bad decisions on fast women.

[@dekutree64]

Another cool electroplating project you could try replicating is from a guy on Hackaday named Michał (copy-paste that, the l is a special character with a little line through it). The project is called "Self-Created Metal Composites". He took a tangled mess of carbon fiber and electroplated it to bind the fibers together into a sturdy low-density structure. I tried it but the copper seemed to just collect as a fine powder on the carbon rather than binding together. But I'm no good with chemistry and it was my first time trying to electroplate anything so I'm sure I just didn't do it right. It sounds like a very useful technique, so showing it to your large audience would be great.

[@hullinstruments]

Would love to see your take on a DIY pulsed tea laser / tunable dye laser. I'm a big fan of the KZbin channel "Les's lab ".. But had never experimented with dye lasers until his videos motivated me to do so. I've built half a dozen or more now that actually have uses in my small lab. And would have never done it without the motivation from les. Would be incredible to see you tinker with some of that stuff and help bring more people into the hobby because of your wide reach.

[@BreakingTaps]

I'd like to at some point, but definitely have some more reading/learning to do! Only very basic knowledge of actually constructing lasers. But I'm also a big fan of Les's channel, have some of his dye laser videos bookmarked for future learning :)

[@HM-Projects]

thanks for sharing these, all of these sound like fun projects. perhaps you can revisit some of them later. off topic question, what's your day job and technical background ?

[@BreakingTaps]

Until a year or two ago I was a software engineer (distributed search analytics), with a background/degree in molecular and cellular biology 🙂 My career path has been pretty non-linear heh. At the moment I'm half-time bootstrapping a machine shop, and half-time doing YT.

[@HM-Projects]

@@BreakingTaps one of us, one of us. All the best with your shop endeavour.

[@jakobfindlay4136]

id like to hear more about the ceramic sla printing mainly because in curious about how you managed to increase the amount of ceramic in suspension and keep it suspended

[@user255]

13:41 What if you wet the material with alcohol before pulling the vacuum? I would guess that would drive the oxygen away from the particle surfaces and leftover would act as reducing agent.

[@BreakingTaps]

Will give that a shot next time! The Virtual Foundry folks also recommend adding some kind of reducing "ballast" like carbon/graphite to help eat up excess oxygen. I suspect I might have a leak in the vacuum furnace though. It's an old ebay find and when I was packing it to move shops I found a section which I think isn't sealing well, letting in tons of ambient air.

[@rossknowles5608]

amazing.

[@GTS00000]

Great video! Questions: (i) What software did you use to create the 3D images from the z-stacks? (ii) Those images of the complicated fixture, have you simulated that? (iii) Can you tell us more about the vacuum furnace used for dental applications?

[@johnhutchinson2697]

Great video and very cool projects! I'm a relatively new subscriber to your channel so forgive me if you've mentioned the following in another video or elsewhere, but I have a two part question: firstly, do you have a Google Drive/Dropbox type place where you keep the various papers that you've read stored, and secondly do you/would you be interested in sharing that with your viewers so those interested can try to follow along with your work at a more technical level?

[@EvelynnEleonore]

Maybe you could check out if you can find out anything about that weird explosive layer that forms on bismuth when it comes in contact with perchloric acid! I'm not sure how comfortable you are around energetics but it's been BUGGING me that we can't figure out what's goin on with that :B

[@Mwwwwwwwwe]

"I was going through a phase where I was building ..." (god level impossible to do mad science)🤣🤣 His fails are more impressive than all my achievements combined

[@dMb1869]

These are all pretty cool, but I would really like to build the telescope one myself, so if you could do that one I would be super happy.

[@furl_w]

For the hydrophobic coating maybe it's a charge thing

[@chrisBruner]

Even your failures are more impressive than most people's successes.

[@brettfo]

All too relatable.