A journal for research that took a detour

Serious methods.
Unexpected questions.

Perhaps a late-night lab conversation turned into an experiment that has nothing to do with your dissertation, and now your colleagues insist you should write it up. This is a place for that work.

Journal of Sidequests is a peer-reviewed, open access home for careful science and engineering pursued out of curiosity.

Bring your sidequest Meet the journal
Manuscript templates: Word LaTeX
FIELD NOTESNo. 001

What happens if…

A flask with an unexpectedly elaborate investigation orbiting it FIG. 1 — A PERFECTLY REASONABLE DETOUR.
The experiment was supposed to take an afternoon.

Off the critical path

The question can be silly, but the evidence still has to hold up.

We welcome experiments, measurements, simulations, and small engineering investigations that wandered beyond the day job. A modest question deserves an honest answer, even when the answer is “nothing happened.”

Describe your methods well enough for someone else to repeat the work, report the uncertainty, and share the data and code where possible. We welcome unsurprising results when the investigation gives us a useful answer.

Read the author guidelines

A few perfectly good distractions

Example questions, not published findings.

  1. 01

    Does the “best” way to load a dishwasher survive a controlled trial?

    Everyday engineering
  2. 02

    How much does your coffee cool while you explain your research?

    Thermal detours
  3. 03

    Can a robot fold a fitted sheet without abandoning its principles?

    Unreasonable robotics

From the journal

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The first issue starts with a good question.

No papers have been published yet. Accepted articles will appear here when the first issue is published.

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