Science and Math geek swap

I spent almost all of November knitting for a Science and Math geek swap. The way it works is, you're set up with a partner and have to make science/math related things for that person. You send out the stuff you made, and someone else sends you stuff. Since people on craftster do all sorts of things, not just knit, it's a good way to get cool stuff you wouldn't know how to make yourself.

Here's the stuff I made:

DNA scarf and hat. I used this pattern for the scarf: http://www.twosheep.com/helix/ and then I sort of stole the idea for the hat from this pattern http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter03/PATTcoronet.html But only the idea, cause the shaping came from the hats my grandma always makes.

Then I made this emission spectrum pillow (my idea, no pattern). It's got the Mercury spectrum on one side....

and the Hydrogen spectrum on the other.

The idea is, when you take hydrogen gas (for example) and you give it energy (most times in the form of electricity), you are making electrons jump from one energy level to another. When they loose that extra energy, the electron falls back to lower energy and emits electromagnetic radiation. Sometimes the radiation is in the visible spectrum (visible light and not UV, infrared, radio waves and so on...), which is what I showed in the pillow. So basically, if you give the right amount of energy to Hydrogen, you can make it emit a photon (a particle of radiation) with the a wavelength that corresponds to red light. The same for the other lines/other colors. Mercury has a lot more lines cause it's got a lot more electrons and a much bigger nucleus. That is the basic of florescent lights. Neon lights are just the same idea, but instead of Hydrogen (which actually gives really pretty pink light) or Mercury (which gives a pretty greenish/blue colored light) it is red/orange. OK, spectroscopy lesson over.

I also knit Saturn, or some other planet with rings.

And Sputnik

They've got wires inside to keep them stiff. I made up the patterns for both of them, but stole the ball pattern from here: http://tiajudy.com/yarnball.htm

The girl I swapped with got my package already. She posted pictures, you can see them here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=209416.0;all along with photos of other stuff other people made. I didn't the stuff she made me yet, but I'm looking forward to it.