Two dimensional materials made by van der Waals assembly offer a unique way of building and exploring novel materials properties. The fact that electrons are primarily confined to atomically thin crystal planes grants functionalities distinct from bulk materials—proximate layers and localized probes can interface with the entire electron system rather than just the surface. Here I will discuss our ongoing efforts to study emergent behavior in graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides by using homebuilt scanning probes and measurement systems. I will focus on electron hydrodynamics and moiré superlattice electron transport and will also touch on our efforts to study emergent superconductivity in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene.