Sciencemadness Discussion Board

I'm making a Youtube Channel, What would be good?

Diablo - 3-3-2016 at 22:33

I'm making a youtube channel soon, and I'm going to put some simple chemistry videos on it. Unfortunately for now, my experiments have to be doable in a bedroom, so no toxic/corrosive gasses, boiling liquids (hot is fine, but no active heating), and no large volumes. I've been thinking of making these; copper powder from a copper salt, black ink, electroplating, electroforming, sodium acetate, ferrofluid, and electrorheological fluids. The most dangerous I'm even considering is small scale (~40 ml) electrolysis of molten NaOH in a steel vessel contained within another steel vessel mounted to my wooden desk. With proper precautions in place I think that could be done somewhat safely.

What are some other good experiments I can do?

Oscilllator - 3-3-2016 at 23:28

If you can get a copper mirror to work I will be impressed.

j_sum1 - 3-3-2016 at 23:37

Copper mirror is apparently doable with hydrazine. I have yet to try it.

My advice is to follow your own interest. Your vids are likely to be more engaging and ather a greater following if they sre something you are passionate about. And even more so if you are learning in the process.

So, back at ya. What's your interest?

Diablo - 4-3-2016 at 02:54

Quote: Originally posted by Oscilllator  
If you can get a copper mirror to work I will be impressed.


That may only take a small mod to my electroforming .

Quote: Originally posted by j_sum1  
Copper mirror is apparently doable with hydrazine. I have yet to try it.

My advice is to follow your own interest. Your vids are likely to be more engaging and ather a greater following if they sre something you are passionate about. And even more so if you are learning in the process.

So, back at ya. What's your interest?




Science in general is my interest. I focus in electronics and engineering, but chemistry is an invaluable tool as well. My channel will be science oriented and will have videos from these topics as well as many others.


Edit: Hazard to Others

[Edited on 3-4-2016 by Diablo]

[Edited on 3-4-2016 by Diablo]

chemplayer.. - 4-3-2016 at 08:07

The best advice we can offer (speaking from some experience) is that virtually any topic can be made interesting and engaging if presented in the right way. You can publish 'shock/pop' videos and these will get you views and attention (so feel free to throw in from time to time) but these probably won't match with your passion and interest for the topic.

Try to incorporate simple, clear and creative explanations (e.g. use everyday / funny / interesting metaphors etc.) of the concepts and what's happening. Be brave and inject as much of your own personality and charisma into it as you can, because ultimately that is what will engage and intrigue people and keep them coming back.

Oh, and people hate text-to-speech ;)

100PercentChemistry - 4-3-2016 at 15:42

Make it different from the rest. Try not to do the same exact thing as other channels do. Maybe do elephant toothpaste but a different way or with a twist etc.

I'll be sure to check it out!

JJay - 4-3-2016 at 19:20

I'd like to see a YouTube channel with videos that refute the false information in other YouTube videos. Sort of like MythBusters..

shivam - 4-3-2016 at 20:53

Hey!
I also just started a channel few weeks back. Nothing impressive, but definitely improving!
Be sure to check it out..
However, it's only beginner level chemistry :)


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfaf1qhjgWfG4nn_ymSUfFQ?app...

j_sum1 - 4-3-2016 at 22:06

Quote: Originally posted by JJay  
I'd like to see a YouTube channel with videos that refute the false information in other YouTube videos. Sort of like MythBusters..

Nile Red has started just such a thing under the moniker, Nile Blue. It is worth checking out.

Quote: Originally posted by shivam  
Hey!
I also just started a channel few weeks back. Nothing impressive, but definitely improving!
Be sure to check it out..
However, it's only beginner level chemistry :)


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfaf1qhjgWfG4nn_ymSUfFQ?app...

Rather nice. And good to see some different experiments from the usual.
For a little extra effort you could state quantities used and also give chemical formulas and equations. From your name I guessed you were this guy. I think his quality is probably lower but again, some non-typical experiments.

To the OP. You can't get better than some advice from chemplayer. I think it comes down to content rather than branding. Fancy graphics and editing and a snazzy name are far less important than good clear procedures, high quality image and informative chemical content.

Anyway, it is always good to see new channels start up. Hope yours becomes one of the greats.

shivam - 4-3-2016 at 22:58

Thanks! I'm hoping for the same..

Hopefully I'll get more experience with recording and stuff soon
Also I'm kinda setting up the lab now, so my approach in terms of measurements and all wasn't much "scientific" i'd say
But everything is improving

P.s. I'm not That guy (shiva scientist)
Coincidentally our names are kinda similar. Maybe because he's also Indian?? :D

Diablo - 6-3-2016 at 21:52

I'm going to build a camera mount and then I'm going to try to get my first videos up tomorrow. They will be; how to solder, metal electrolysis and growing copper crystals, and making black ink part 1. I'll rename them before they're done.


Diablo - 7-3-2016 at 06:58

I'll be filming my first video in a Minute. My name will be OpenHive or a variation. The first video will be "How to solder; Part One Basics And Joining Wires". Not chemistry related, but the next one is and they'll be uploaded one after another. The Next one will be something like "Conductive Ink From Kitchen Materials", followed by "Black Ink From Kitchen Materials", then "Invisible Inks From Common Materials", and finally I might start filming for my electrolysis videos.

[Edited on 3-7-2016 by Diablo]

woelen - 7-3-2016 at 07:36

A nice one, which is not seen anywhere else is the following:

- Make a solution of yellow prussiate of potash a.k.a. potassium hexacyanoferrata(II), K4Fe(CN)6. Dissolve appr. 100 mg in 5 ml of water.
- Use a feather to write or draw with this (nearly) colorless solution on a piece of paper. Best is to use yellow paper, then this is totally invisible. You can also use a brush if you make a bigger drawing.
- Allow drawing/writing to dry.

- Make a dilute solution of FeCl3 and vinegar in water, take appr. 1 gram of ferric chloride or ferric sulfate or ferric ammonium sulfate, 20 ml of white vinegar and add 200 to 300 ml. of water.
- Put this dilute solution in a spray bottle and spray this over the drawing. Do this, such that the drawing is wetted, but not so much that liquid runs over the paper.
- Your drawing will appear in clearly visible dark blue color. This is quite impressive.

This does not use anything toxic and you work with very dilute solutions. This reaction even is suitable for kids of age around 10 years. Especially if you make it attractive (e.g. using an old-fashioned feather pen and using nice yellow paper), this can be a good addition to a youtube channel.

Diablo - 7-3-2016 at 09:54

That sounds really good. I don't have any ferrocyanide right now. I do have potassium nitrate though. I wonder if I can find a way to make it. That'd make a good video too.

Diablo - 7-3-2016 at 10:20

I made a thread for that.

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=65...

Edit:

Also, I finished filming soldering part one. It's almost time to start on conductive ink. I think Ill be filming, dubbing, and editing tonight and uploading tomorrow.

[Edited on 3-7-2016 by Diablo]

My Symbol:

download.jpg - 655kB

[Edited on 3-7-2016 by Diablo]

[Edited on 3-7-2016 by Diablo]

Daffodile - 7-3-2016 at 12:25

You can't go wrong with Copper salts. It might be interesting to try and make as many as you can, as well as testing properties.

chemplayer.. - 7-3-2016 at 18:37

A few more tips (that we learned the hard way) for shooting science videos:

1. Lighting is absolutely critical - definitely get a cheap rechargeable LED separate light that you can use to illuminate the area you're filming. As the battery doesn't last a huge amount of time you want to keep this switched off when not shooting and this is where getting one with a remote control on/off switch pays off. If you look at Nile Red's channel his videos look so polished and good because he's got the lighting down-pat (probably 2 or maybe even 3 point set up). These days the camera is not important, the lighting is the key.

2. Get the white balance setting on the camera right and select a good trade-off between accurate colours (but 'cold') and a warm feeling to the light (but this will make things like white crystals look slightly orange, so careful). Stick with one setting per video or things will look a bit strange.

3. Get as many different shots as possible, so you can cut between them. When you start putting narration over the top you'll be much happier that you allowed some extra time on the shots, so film a good 10 seconds for every shot you take. Buy a big hard drive to store and backup everything on. You could be looking at 4-5 Gb of space needed for the footage for 1 video in some cases if you shoot in 1080.

4. Lots of good free software out there to use. Blender is good for 3D animations (like our opening sequence) - just be prepared to spend 3 days flat out learning how to use it before you'll get anything useful out because the learning curve is quite steep; just go hard and keep at it until you've got it. Lightworks is really good for splicing clips together quickly but the free version only goes up to 720 resolution, so consider what output quality you want to achieve. Microsoft 'paint' (!!) has very convenient hexagons, pentagons etc. and is actually really good for drawing molecules if you want to incorporate diagrams.

5. Polish your glassware - with the camera and lighting any fingerprints, dirt, scratches etc. are completely obvious. We confess that we're really lazy on this but our glassware is so used now that frankly it makes little difference. If you really want a polished professional look then get a glass polishing cloth and use it on everything before you film.

6. Use a tripod for the camera. This is obvious but you might think you can get away without it... you can't! By the way, if you're rich (we wish) then there is some amazing new technology which no one is using yet but could create some amazing science filming capability - check out DJI's 'Osmo' handheld steadicam using the same stabilisation technology that drone cameras use. We tried one out a few weeks ago via a friend and were blown away. They do however need to get noise reduction under control (the cooling fans for the gimbal motors are loud), so perhaps this is one for a few years when its perfected and the unit cost is a few hundred bucks (currently 600 I think); or use an external mic, but then this gets complicated during video editing with sync. issues...

7. For narration there are two options - firstly to do it 'live' whilst filming, and secondly to do it afterwards over the top. We do the latter - you filim all the shots in silence (only the sounds of the explosions, glass shattering, screams of pain etc.), then putting the shots together and then putting the narration over the top of this as an audio file in your video editor. The end result will be more professional and controllable, but it will take some practise. If you want to do things in the live style and have 'gonzo' or 'street' style videos (see 'Extractions&Ire' channel on YT) then you can narrate the video live as you go, but to get it looking good is also going to take a bit of practise and possibly even more time in terms of retakes. So think carefully and choose the style you want.

8. For close-ups, see if your camera lens will do a low 'f number' aperture setting - this will give you a short depth of field so that one part of the picture is in focus but the rest artistically blurred out and looking cool. Remember though that things blurred out in the background look better than in the foreground.

Good luck! Look forward to seeing some videos!

Diablo - 7-3-2016 at 21:22

Quote: Originally posted by chemplayer..  
A few more tips (that we learned the hard way) for shooting science videos:

1. Lighting is absolutely critical - definitely get a cheap rechargeable LED separate light that you can use to illuminate the area you're filming. As the battery doesn't last a huge amount of time you want to keep this switched off when not shooting and this is where getting one with a remote control on/off switch pays off. If you look at Nile Red's channel his videos look so polished and good because he's got the lighting down-pat (probably 2 or maybe even 3 point set up). These days the camera is not important, the lighting is the key.

2. Get the white balance setting on the camera right and select a good trade-off between accurate colours (but 'cold') and a warm feeling to the light (but this will make things like white crystals look slightly orange, so careful). Stick with one setting per video or things will look a bit strange.

3. Get as many different shots as possible, so you can cut between them. When you start putting narration over the top you'll be much happier that you allowed some extra time on the shots, so film a good 10 seconds for every shot you take. Buy a big hard drive to store and backup everything on. You could be looking at 4-5 Gb of space needed for the footage for 1 video in some cases if you shoot in 1080.

4. Lots of good free software out there to use. Blender is good for 3D animations (like our opening sequence) - just be prepared to spend 3 days flat out learning how to use it before you'll get anything useful out because the learning curve is quite steep; just go hard and keep at it until you've got it. Lightworks is really good for splicing clips together quickly but the free version only goes up to 720 resolution, so consider what output quality you want to achieve. Microsoft 'paint' (!!) has very convenient hexagons, pentagons etc. and is actually really good for drawing molecules if you want to incorporate diagrams.

5. Polish your glassware - with the camera and lighting any fingerprints, dirt, scratches etc. are completely obvious. We confess that we're really lazy on this but our glassware is so used now that frankly it makes little difference. If you really want a polished professional look then get a glass polishing cloth and use it on everything before you film.

6. Use a tripod for the camera. This is obvious but you might think you can get away without it... you can't! By the way, if you're rich (we wish) then there is some amazing new technology which no one is using yet but could create some amazing science filming capability - check out DJI's 'Osmo' handheld steadicam using the same stabilisation technology that drone cameras use. We tried one out a few weeks ago via a friend and were blown away. They do however need to get noise reduction under control (the cooling fans for the gimbal motors are loud), so perhaps this is one for a few years when its perfected and the unit cost is a few hundred bucks (currently 600 I think); or use an external mic, but then this gets complicated during video editing with sync. issues...

7. For narration there are two options - firstly to do it 'live' whilst filming, and secondly to do it afterwards over the top. We do the latter - you filim all the shots in silence (only the sounds of the explosions, glass shattering, screams of pain etc.), then putting the shots together and then putting the narration over the top of this as an audio file in your video editor. The end result will be more professional and controllable, but it will take some practise. If you want to do things in the live style and have 'gonzo' or 'street' style videos (see 'Extractions&Ire' channel on YT) then you can narrate the video live as you go, but to get it looking good is also going to take a bit of practise and possibly even more time in terms of retakes. So think carefully and choose the style you want.

8. For close-ups, see if your camera lens will do a low 'f number' aperture setting - this will give you a short depth of field so that one part of the picture is in focus but the rest artistically blurred out and looking cool. Remember though that things blurred out in the background look better than in the foreground.

Good luck! Look forward to seeing some videos!


Looks like I've done a good job preparing. I shoot my videos slowly when I can and make sure I get extra shots so I have plenty to work with on the computer. I have my videos set up in a white box with 2 fluorescent lights at the sides pointed toward the top and back of the box.
I didn't have a tripod, so I made a device out of pringles cans to hold my camera steady and allow me to change the angle for filming. So far it's worked really well. In addition, since the camera I'm using is my phone's (moto g) I also have a fairly strong LED light pointed at the project. This creates a mild 3 point effect. Although my camera can only shoot video for about 50 minutes with the light on.
I can't adjust the lens, but the phone's software is pretty good, and by keeping certain things out of the scene and positioning I can get good, in-focus shots. I'm going to take a few more for the soldering video soon, then I'm going to take some copper shots.
I'm actually quite practised with blender. I'll be using it for the intros, but that will have to wait. As for video; I'm not sure what I'll use, but I'll find something for Ubuntu if I can. I've been trying to time everything I do in a video too so it can be narrated well later.
Honestly it's all starting to look really good and I can't wait too upload my first videos tomorrow!
LGAi.jpg - 5kB

[Edited on 3-8-2016 by Diablo]

chemplayer.. - 8-3-2016 at 02:58

Sounds really great - be sure to post a link when it's up!

Diablo - 8-3-2016 at 08:37

I cleaned up my area and have the experiments lined up. I also played with my lens collection and easily made a microscope that could project images of bacteria from my saliva. I'll shoot a video on that too. I think I'm going to keep progress of my channel in this thread.

[Edited on 3-8-2016 by Diablo]

Diablo - 10-3-2016 at 10:30

I have lots of footage to go over now. I'm still experimenting and filming, but it's time to start editing videos while I wait. I managed to grow a smooth copper layer on clear plastic too.

Daffodile - 22-3-2016 at 14:07

You could make it interesting with a lab pet. Tdep has a stuffed dog in his lab (the one in his videos), while Chem Player has lots of ants.



[Edited on 22-3-2016 by Daffodile]

100PercentChemistry - 26-3-2016 at 12:37

It would be a great idea. Try not do do exactly what other people do. Make it interesting.

Daffodile - 26-3-2016 at 13:34

Here's a few things I'll be doing soon which you might wanna try (depending where you live).

- Extraction of Iodine from Seaweed (Fucus has 0.05% Iodine by weight, Kelp can have up to 0.8%).

- Extraction of Salicylic acid from willow bark. (Good luck lol)

- Extraction of Oxalic acid from skunk cabbage. (Have fun, or alternately try using rhubarb).

- Extraction of Methanol from wood. (Yields suck shit, but have fun anyway.)

- Production of Acetone from Calcium Acetate.

- RDX synthesis from Nitric acid and Hexamine.

Diablo - 21-4-2016 at 22:26

I started again from scratch. My set up is far better now. My first videos, which will be up late tonight, will be: making electrorheological fluids, feeling magnetism & conductivity with magnets "6th sense", making black ink, and flame-enhanced 555 driven plasma speaker.

I might show salicin from willow bark. I will update as I make major progress.

Daffodile - 22-4-2016 at 22:22

Quote: Originally posted by Diablo  
I started again from scratch. My set up is far better now. My first videos, which will be up late tonight, will be: making electrorheological fluids, feeling magnetism & conductivity with magnets "6th sense", making black ink, and flame-enhanced 555 driven plasma speaker.

I might show salicin from willow bark. I will update as I make major progress.


Im finding out now that salicylic acid from willow bark is exxxtreemely hard to get a good yield from. Something to consider would be decarboxylating it and distilling phenol from the extracts.

Diablo - 23-4-2016 at 19:04


Update:I forgot my family was coming over this weekend. I'll put my first videos up on Monday.

Quote: Originally posted by Daffodile  
Quote: Originally posted by Diablo  
I started again from scratch. My set up is far better now. My first videos, which will be up late tonight, will be: making electrorheological fluids, feeling magnetism & conductivity with magnets "6th sense", making black ink, and flame-enhanced 555 driven plasma speaker.

I might show salicin from willow bark. I will update as I make major progress.


Im finding out now that salicylic acid from willow bark is exxxtreemely hard to get a good yield from. Something to consider would be decarboxylating it and distilling phenol from the extracts.

This is because Willow only contains salicin, which the body converts to salicylic acid. I will have to do some experiments. Luckily there are many willows and poplars here.

[Edited on 4-24-2016 by Diablo]

JJay - 23-4-2016 at 19:29

My first YouTube chemistry video is going to be preparation of sodium ethyl sulfate.