Popular Mechanics September/October 2022

RACHEL STEFFAN, 42 Art and Technology Education Teacher/Lanse, PA “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”—Albert Einstein MY AHA! MOMENT When I realized I don’t always have to guide my students step-by-step. I can give them advice and then set them free to solve problems at their own speed in their own ways. There was a time when I was basically overplanning my lessons—too much structure can stifle a learning environment. HOW I BECAME A MASTER Ever since I was a little girl living in a rural cabin in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, I’ve been drawing, painting, and coloring. But my professors and intense training at Penn State University made me into an expert while I was working toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing. Since graduating 18 years ago, I’ve continued to…

THESE TOPICS ARE HOT. OUR TAKES ARE HOTTER. → Every PopMech editor is a proud enthusiast of a specific hobby, trade, or field of study. (It’s practically a prerequisite for working here.) Naturally, when you build a staff of buffs who live and breathe this stuff—and then ask them to expand upon the corners of their worlds that have them most worked up—you’re bound to get some impassioned pronouncements. Here, then, are the hottest takes and possibly controversial opinions from the PopMech crew. Let’s Tour Earth, Not the Universe Having skydived—and watched plenty of hours of Planet Earth—I understand the appeal of space tourism. It would be undeniably cool to see our little blue speck from a new perspective. But with climate change already wreaking havoc and future projections looking bleak, I worry…

Make Your Own Smokeless Fire Pit RECENT SMOKELESS FIRE PIT TESTING—TRYING OUT SIX new models for this summer—got me thinking it might not be too hard to make one myself. Without taking anything away from companies selling these fire pits, building one is fairly simple once you have an understanding of how they work. The short story is this: I started with a 55-gallon drum, cut roughly in half horizontally, as the main body. Then I slit one of those halves vertically down the side and squeezed it to a smaller diameter to fit inside the other half; this created the double-wall construction that makes these fire pits work. After adding a bottom, I created a cap that bridged the tops of the inner and outer walls. Finally, I cut holes…

POPMECH PRO It’s easy to lose track of all the perks that come with your PopMech Pro membership, like exclusive features, detailed plans for DIY projects, and a weekly members-only newsletter. Here are some of the best recent Pro stories you might have missed. (Not a member? Head to popularmechanics.com/join.) FUSION IS THE FUTURE—AND IT’S COMING FAST An MIT spin-off partly funded by Bill Gates has signed a new agreement to continue its nuclear fusion research for at least the next five years. The goal: to make commercial nuclear fusion a reality. MIT is using a tokamak, which magnetically confines plasma to create nuclear fusion energy, but researchers still need to figure out how it can handle extreme heat. SOLVE IT: THE SHIP CROSSING CONUNDRUM Members tried to crack this head-scratcher that appeared in the…

THE FIRST-EVER IMAGE of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way isn’t so much an image of pure darkness as it is a view of the glowing gas that surrounds it. A new report, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in May, offers the first direct visual evidence of “Sagittarius A*.” Over 300 researchers observed the black hole across several nights for multiple hours to create the image, akin to using a long exposure for a photo of a starry night sky. Because a black hole is completely dark, you can’t see the hole, but you do see the glowing gas orbiting around it as a bright, ring-like form. The new image of Sagittarius A*, 27,000 light-years away from Earth, captures light bent by the black hole’s powerful gravity,…

DECADES AGO, I HAD A WEEKEND JOB DOING condo maintenance and repair. I did all kinds of work, including interior and exterior painting and carpentry. Often, I followed right behind a squad of electricians and plumbers who left holes everywhere they went. I developed this drywall repair method to quickly and accurately fix small to medium drywall holes. I call it the “brick method” because it reminds me of applying mortar to a brick. If an electrician or plumber cut an access hole, I would ask them to leave the drywall cutout because I would use it again. When I didn’t have the original cutout, I would square up and neaten the hole they left behind and cut a patch to fit the opening. STEP 1 | First, cut the repair patch.…