Arduino

The Arduino is a type of open source hardware. Using an Arduino is fairly straightforward: buy a board and attach it to a personal computer via a cable.

Then load instructions into the Arduino’s processor via the personal computer, William Gurstelle explained.

Once programmed, the Arduino makes decisions based on the information transmitted by whatever sensors you’ve hooked up, and does something corporeal, such as turn on or off the motors, displays, valves, and lights attached to it.

Arduino, a small, open-source hardware microcontroller platform has been turning heads in it’s flexibility as a prototyping platform for a dizzying array of applications, from oscillators to robots to 3d printers, just to name a few.

This documentary interviews the revolutionary beginning of the creators behind this movement, and touches upon what it will mean for students, engineers, and garage tinkerers alike.

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A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

The full book

Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries? These are just some of the questions considered in an internationally acclaimed masterpiece by one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders.

To Infinity and Beyond

Documentary examining current ideas about very large numbers and infinity in regards to mathematics and the observable universe.
By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever.
But, while infinity might seem like an perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems.
Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last.
And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you.
Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity.

To Infinity and Beyond 

Smartest Machine On Earth (2011)

An example of geeky-brainiac cross-promotion, Smartest Machine on Earth provides the background to next week’s Jeopardy showdown between Ken Jennings, whose face Alex Trebek got good and sick of in 2004; Brad Rutter, the winner of the most money in the show’s history; and Watson, an IBM computer that is the end result of a four-year effort to build the ultimate testament to machine learning.

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Style Wars

When director Tony Silver and co-producer Henry Chalfant delivered the broadcast version of their prize-winning film to PBS in 1983, the world received its first full immersion in the phenomenon that had taken over New York City. The urban landscape was physically transformed by graffiti artists who invented a new visual language to express both their individuality, and the voice of their community. In STYLE WARS, New York’s ramshackle subway system is their public playground, battleground, and spectacular artistic canvas. As MC’s, DJ’s and B-boys rock the city with new sounds and new moves, we see street corner breakdance battles turn into performance art.

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Evolution Documentary

Broadcast (2010) Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures -- 1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go?

The source of life's endless forms was a mystery until Charles Darwin's revolutionary idea of natural selection, which he showed could help explain the gradual development of life on Earth. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? And how did we evolve?

On the 150th anniversary of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," "NOVA" reveals answers to the riddles that Darwin couldn't explain. Breakthroughs in a brand-new science --nicknamed "evo devo" -- are linking the enigma of origins to another of nature's great mysteries, the development of an embryo.

"NOVA" takes viewers on a journey from the Galapagos Islands to the Arctic and from the Cambrian explosion of animal forms half a billion years ago to the research labs of today. Here scientists are finally beginning to crack nature's biggest secrets at the genetic level. And, as "NOVA" shows, the results are confirming the brilliance of Darwin's insights while exposing clues to life's breathtaking diversity.

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The Great Robot Race (NOVA)

The Pentagon's DARPA Grand Challenge where 43 self driving computer cars compete in a Race against each other to find the best , where they face obstacles, dangers, and where the ultimate robot car is put to the ultimate test.  Watch documentary