Breaking Taps

Breaking Taps is a channel exploring materials science and machining. Its home lab includes optical microscopes, an atomic force microscope and a scanning electron microscope.

Videos follow projects in detail, often at a microscopic scale. The channel has tried making camera sensors, cutting metal inside an electron microscope and building the tools used to make computer chips. Recent work moves into designing custom silicon and hardware for space. Each video explains the science behind the process and shows honest results, including failures.

Some highlights include:

A tour through three decades of lithography, the process used to print the patterns on computer chips.

A close look at an Intel 486 processor under the microscope, showing its tiny structures.

An experiment cutting metal inside a scanning electron microscope to see what happens at the cutting edge.

Breaking Taps has around 580,000 subscribers.

Microchips are among the most complex things humans make, and the UK has growing semiconductor and space industries. This channel is a good way into electronic engineering, materials science and precision manufacturing. It shows how careful experiments and good measurement lead to working hardware. Students who enjoy these videos might look at degrees in electronic engineering, physics or materials, all of which lead into chip design and manufacturing.