One of my favorite MAKE projects never made it into the magazine (I'm editor-in-chief of MAKE). It was a how-to piece for making a small object that levitates using a high-voltage power source.
After the article had been laid out and we were getting ready to close the issue (Vol. 9), we sent the article around to the members of MAKE's technical advisory board. Based on their feedback about the potential hazards of the project, we killed the story.
On the MAKE website, we're running an article about the project that includes the comments from our tech advisory board. It's fascinating reading.
What's more important: empowering readers to take control of technology, or protecting them from the risks? A spirited discussion between MAKE's editors and technical advisory board ultimately led us to cancel publication of the high-voltage "Lifter" project in Volume 09.The piece was written by John MacNeill, a well-known illustrator whose work appears frequently in publications such as Popular Science. MacNeill is also a "lifter" hobbyist who has made several of the mysterious levitating devices, and the how-to project he submitted was excellent. We were very excited to run it. However, MAKE's technical advisory board, consisting of engineers, how-to book authors, and researchers, deemed the project to be unsafe, due to the project's high voltage conducted across exposed wires in a flying object. Would strong warnings suffice, or did we need a full primer on high voltage? We also worried about recommending reuse of a TV tube (CRT) as a power supply, due to the dangers of capacitance discharge, and the unknown voltage and current. But even with a store-bought DC power supply, could the current of 0.4 milliamps be deadly? (Probably not.) Would the current-limiting knob protect makers? (Probably so.) Was the project too tempting for inexperienced teens? Isn't it MAKE's mission to empower people to handle technology? And, having established an email thread of world-class makers questioning safety, what about legal liability?
