Over the past couple of years, the Make: Books team has been coming out with hands-on books covering everything from making wearable electronics to creating your own home chemistry lab. We’ve got all these books up for sale in Maker Shed, but we’ve also got a big selection of books from other publishers.
Each year at MAKE, we create some gift guides – this year we’re adding a guide to the books we make ourselves as well as some of the others we think are awesome.
This valuable little book offers a thorough introduction to the open source electronics prototyping platform that’s taking the design and hobbyist world by storm. Getting Started with Arduino gives you lots of ideas for projects and helps you get going on them right away. To use the introductory examples in this book, all you need is a USB Arduino, USB A-B cable, and an LED. By Massimo Banzi, co-founder of the Arduino Project.
Programming microcontrollers used to require an expensive development environment costing thousands of dollars and requiring professional electrical engineering expertise. Open-source physical computing platforms with simple i/o boards and development environments have led to new options for hobbyists, hackers, and makers. Written by Arduino team member Tom Igoe, this book contains a series of projects that teach you what you need to know to get your creations talking to each other, connecting to the web, and forming networks of smart devices.
Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior’s Guide to Building Projectile Shooters
These are the homemade machines that you’ve dreamed of building, from the high-voltage Night Lighter 36 spud gun to the Jam Jar Jet, the Marshmallow Shooter, and the Yagua Blowgun. Including detailed diagrams and supply lists, William Gurstelle’s simple, step-by-step instructions help workshop warriors at any skill level achieve impressively powerful results.
Instructables.com has become one of the most popular magnets for makers and DIY enthusiasts of all stripes. Now, with more than 10,000 projects to choose from, the Instructables staff, editors of MAKE: Magazine, and the Instructables community itself have put together a collection of technology how-to’s from the site. The Best of Instructables Volume 1 includes plenty of clear, full-color photographs, complete step-by-step instructions, and tips, tricks, and new build techniques you won’t find anywhere else. Over 300 pages!
From the creators of Make & Craft Magazine comes the Maker’s Notebook. Put your own ideas, diagrams, calculations & notes down in these 150 pages of engineering graph paper. We’ve also included 20 bonus pages of reference material, from useful stuff like electronics symbols, resistor codes, weights and measures, basic conversions and more, to really useful stuff like the amount of caffeine in different caffeinated beverages and how to say “Hello, World!” in various computer languages. The covers of this hardcover book are printed in cyan “Maker” blue with a white grid debossed front and back. Grab one today!
The American Girl’s Handy Book
A reprint of a 1890’s publication for young ladies instructing them in such hobbies as fancy needlework, handmade dolls, china painting, painting in oils, heraldic painting, preservation of wild flowers, and many others. Emphasizing what girls can do, presents a portrait of girlhood that is vigorous, active, and full of possibilities. Written by the Beard sisters, two of the founders of Girl Scouting in the United States.
As timely as it is timeless, this instructive book has captured the interest and imagination of boys for well over a century. Chapters on kite flying and fishing, rigging and sailing boats, camping out without a tent, knot-tying for mountain climbing and other activities. Used by generations of Boy Scouts, this classic includes scores of projects that will keep the young, and the young at heart, occupied all year long. A wonderful book for boys and girls alike.
Coding4Fun: 10 .NET Programming Projects for Wiimote, YouTube, World of Warcraft, and More
How would you like to build an Xbox 360 game, or build your own peer-to-peer application? This book will help you tackle cool software and hardware projects using a range of free Microsoft software. Now you can have some fun with C#, VB, WPF, ASP.NET, Lua, XNA Game Studio, and Popfly. If you love to tinker, but don’t have time to figure it all out, Coding4Fun gives you clear, step-by-step instructions for building ten creative projects.
Ready to take your craft projects to the next level? With “smart” materials, unorthodox assembly techniques, and the right tools, you can create accessories, housewares, and toys that light up, make sounds, or do even more. Fashioning Technology offers jargon-free primers and lots of how-to projects that will have you making — and even wearing — functional works of art. This book demonstrates how to blend sewing and assembly techniques with traditional electronics to assemble simple circuits using conductive thread, solder joints for snaps, and switches for buttons. With the sewing machine as a viable substitute for the soldering iron, you can craft a new generation of objects that are interactive, quirky, and fashion-conscious.
Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders
Amateur astronomy is now within the reach of anyone, and this is the ideal book to get you started. The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders offers you a guide to the equipment you need, and shows you how and where to find hundreds of spectacular objects in the deep sky — double and multiple stars as well as spectacular star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.
Holiday Shipping Deadlines:
FedEx*:
Ground – Dec 15th
3-Day Saver -Dec 17th
2-Day -Dec 18th
Overnight -Dec 19th
*Customers experiences on orders with these ship methods placed after these dates may vary, the dates listed are what we call “safe dates”
USPS (Any Method):
Due to the high volume of mail that the postal service deals with around the holidays, order by Dec. 10th, however, many packages are lost or delayed in transit and we do not replace or refund any orders lost using this ship method, we strongly encourage you to not use this method in December.
Want more? Stop by the Maker Shed store and check out THE place for open source hardware, Arduino & Arduino accessories, electronic kits, science kits, smart stuff for kids, back issues of MAKE & CRAFT, box sets, books, robots, kits from Japan and more.
If I missed any kits or resources, post up in the comments.
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