Regular readers will probably recognize Bill Hammack’s name, by now, and require no introduction to him or his work. Engineer Guy series #4 is the first to include a companion book. Bill sent me a copy of Eight Amazing Engineering Stories back in May, shortly after the first video in the new series came out, and I read it more-or-less as intended, following along with each of its eight chapters as the corresponding videos were released.
Our very own John Baichtal has written a wonderful guide to hackerspaces and 24 cool projects that their members have produced. You will find no better Virgil to guide you through the realm of DIWO (Do It With Others) than “nerdyjb.”
As a book-loving maker family, we try to find books that will prime our two boys, ages 2 and 4, to have the curiosity, whimsy, creativity, resourcefulness, flexibility of thinking, environmental understanding, and mechanical sense to contribute to the family-wide maker projects we’ve already started to do together. But discovering compelling books that can do this can be challenging.
“Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.” Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992 That was the thought in Thomas Thwaites’ mind as he undertook a 9-month, £1187.54 project to recreate his own toaster as part of his Master’s degree at the Royal […]
I have a bunch of those Reader’s Digest and Time-Life build, repair, maintain handyman books. Way before MAKE and before the internet became an on-demand learning source for just about anything (back when the alt.science.repair USENET FAQ was the best resource out there), these sorts of books were a godsend if you wanted to learn the basics on building a deck, tiling a bathroom, fixing your own appliances.
Every time I see some great mechanical, hydraulic, or electromechanical contraption left by the side of the curb for trash, I think about all of the great raw materials inside that I could use. Ed Sobey’s new book, Unscrewed, gives sage advice regarding how to mine the gold in them thar heaps of broken appliances.
In anticipation of Father’s Day (this weekend!) we’re offering this review of Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun. We think the book is, well, fun, and we think you’ll agree. And as an added bonus, we’re giving MAKE readers a free, downloadable PDF of one of the book’s projects, the really fun NERF Dart Blowgun. Enjoy!
