When we left New York City to explore what it would take to create a way of life in which we could be full time makers we had no idea that it would lead to a return to Maker Faire this time to launch a book about our experiences. The Good Life Lab is a manual for post consumer living. We did discover a lifestyle that allowed us to be full time makers. Along the way we learned to wildcraft, grow food, ferment, weld, build and home manufacture electronics. By developing mad skills we learned to live out of the waste stream and harvest from nature. When we applied technology to old problems we found new ways to solve them. Then we shared what we knew and put our work in the commons. In retrospect we noticed that jobs can be expensive. Especially if they prevent us from discovering the things we most love to do. What would you do if you could be a full time maker, if you didnt have to go to work tomorrow? If your in N. California meet us at the Maker Faire and tell us about it.
The Good Life Lab is pre-launching at Maker Faire. It comes out in stores everywhere June 5 and can be preordered on Amazon
Bios
Wendy Tremayne was a creative director in a marketing firm in New York City before moving to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where she built an off-the-grid oasis in a barren RV park with her partner, Mikey Sklar. She is the founder of the textile repurposing event Swap-O-Rama-Rama, which has spread all over the world. She has written for Craft’s webzine and Make magazine and, with Mikey Sklar, keeps the blog Holy Scrap.
Mikey Sklar is a digital homesteader, open source hardware developer and anti-griddle master. Mikey has worked for Adafruit, Hack-A-Day and Popular Science.
Wendy & Mikey are giving three presentations @ Maker Faire, San Mateo, CA
Meet the Maker Stage
Saturday May 18, 2013 03:30PM – 3:50
Homegrown Village Stage
Sunday May 19, 2013 11:30AM – 12:20
Swap-O-Rama-Rama – Talk and Book Signing
May 20, 2013 03:20PM – 3:40
Note from Ladyada & pt @ Adafruit:We’ve known Wendy & Mikey for years, we’ve visited their place in Truth or Consequences and it was one of the best experiences ever. They shared a preview of the book with us and it’s inspirational tale for all makers. If you’re at Maker Faire this weekend, go see them and either way, pick up this book!
He browsed the books like a giant looking for something to read. Some were small enough to fit into a fold of his hand. Many of the books were illegibly small, and he didn’t know what they were all about. But reading them was never the point.
Neale Albert, 75, is a collector of miniature books, and he may be the most serious collector living in New York. By definition, miniature books are properly printed and bound, and for the most part no larger than three inches. Mr. Albert has over 4,000 of them, some the size of matchboxes and others smaller than a tab of chewing gum. Some of the books are worth many thousands of dollars.
NEW PRODUCT – Welcome to your Awesome Robot by Viviane Schwarz – This is a early-learning activity book for Young Makers (sug. 5-7 years) with some cut-out/popsicle-stick/glue/rubber-band type projects. No electronics and soldering so it’s very simple and safe. We think it’s an adorable introduction to having robot friends.
From the publisher: “Build your very own awesome automaton step by step from a base unit to the towering, terrifying, tremor-triggering robot of your dreams. This book provides everything you need to create a robot costume from objects you’d normally just throw out and have a fun day in!
Designed to be enjoyed by children with an adult on hand – this book provides perfect material for a fun family activity day or a kids’ workshop. Viviane Schwarz has illustrated hilarious comics throughout the book to explain the blueprint instruction pages, so this is just as much a story as it is an activity book.”
This is a large format, 32 page book with many big pictures and diagrams.
NEW PRODUCT – Hacking Electronics by Simon Monk – You don’t need an electrical engineering degree to start hacking electronics! This intuitive guide shows how to wire, disassemble, tweak, and re-purpose everyday devices quickly and easily. Packed with full-color illustrations, photos, and diagrams, Hacking Electronics teaches by doing–each topic features fun, easy-to-follow projects. Discover how to hack sensors, accelerometers, remote controllers, ultrasonic rangefinders, motors, stereo equipment, microphones, and FM transmitters. The final chapter contains useful information on getting the most out of cheap or free bench and software tools.
Safely solder, join wires, and connect switches
Identify components and read schematic diagrams
Understand the how and why of electronics theory
Work with transistors, LEDs, and laser diode modules
Power your devices with a/c supplies, batteries, or solar panels
Get up and running on Arduino boards and pre-made modules
Use sensors to detect everything from noxious gas to acceleration
Build and modify audio amps, microphones, and transmitters
Fix gadgets and scavenge useful parts from dead equipment
This 300 page book is a nice review of the most common skills and techniques a maker needs to hack electronics, and the color photos are awesome.
The Supreme Court has sided with a Thai graduate student in the U.S. who sold cheap foreign versions of textbooks on eBay without the publisher’s permission, a decision with important implications for goods sold online and in discount stores.
The justices, in a 6-3 vote Tuesday, threw out a copyright infringement award to publisher John Wiley & Sons. Thai graduate student Supap Kirtsaeng used eBay to resell copies of the publisher’s copyrighted books that his relatives first bought abroad at cut-rate prices.
Justice Stephen Breyer said in his opinion for the court that the publisher lost any ability to control what happens to its books after their first sale abroad.
“If there is a successor to Make: Electronics, then I believe it would have to be Practical Electronics for Inventors….perfect for an electrical engineering student or maybe a high school student with a strong aptitude for electronics….I’ve been anxiously awaiting this update, and it was well worth the wait.”–GeekDad (Wired.com)
Spark your creativity and gain the electronics skills required to transform your innovative ideas into functioning gadgets. This hands-on, updated guide outlines electrical principles and provides thorough, easy-to-follow instructions, schematics, and illustrations. Find out how to select components, safely assemble circuits, perform error tests, and build plug-and-play prototypes. Practical Electronics for Inventors, Third Edition, features all-new chapters on sensors, microcontrollers, modular electronics, and the latest software tools.
Coverage includes:
Resistors, capacitors, inductors, and transformers
Diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits
Optoelectronics, solar cells, and phototransistors
Sensors, GPS modules, and touch screens
Op amps, regulators, and power supplies
Digital electronics, LCD displays, and logic gates
Microcontrollers and prototyping platforms, including Arduino
DC motors, RC servos, and stepper motors
Microphones, audio amps, and speakers
Modular electronics and prototyping
Table of contents
Part I – Theory
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Theory Part II – Devices
Chapter 3. Basic Electronic Components
Chapter 4. Discrete Semiconductors
Chapter 5. Optoelectronics
Chapter 6. Sensors
Chapter 7. Hands-on Electronics Part III – Design
Chapter 8. Operational Amplifiers
Chapter 9. Filters
Chapter 10. Oscillators and Timers
Chapter 11. Voltage Regulators and Power Supplies
Chapter 12. Digital Electronics
Chapter 13. Microcontrollers
Chapter 14. Electromechanical Devices
Chapter 15. Audio Electronics
Chapter 16. Applied Electronics Part IV – Appendixes
Appendix A. Power Distribution and Home Wiring
Appendix B. Error Analysis
Appendix C. Useful Facts and Formulas
Appendix D. Component Data, List of Logic ICs, Foreign Semiconductor Codes
Author comments
Paul Scherz is a physicist/mechanical engineer who received his B.S. in physics from the University of Wisconsin. He is an inventor/hobbyist in electronics, an area he grew to appreciate through his experience at the University’s Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics and the Department of Plasma Physics.
Dr. Simon Monk has a degree in Cybernetics and Computer Science and a PhD in Software Engineering. Monk spent several years as an academic before he returned to industry, co-founding the mobile software company Momote Ltd. He has been an active electronics hobbyist since his early teens and is a full time writer on hobby electronics and open source hardware. Dr. Monk is the author of numerous electronics books, including 30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius and Arduino + Android Projects for the Evil Genius.
NEW PRODUCT! Getting Started with Raspberry Pi by Matt Richardson & Shawn Wallace – What can you do with the Raspberry Pi, a $35 computer the size of a credit card? All sorts of things! If you’re learning how to program, or looking to build new electronic projects, this hands-on guide will show you just how valuable this flexible little platform can be.
This book takes you step-by-step through many fun and educational possibilities. Take advantage of several preloaded programming languages. Use the Raspberry Pi with Arduino. Create Internet-connected projects. Play with multimedia. With Raspberry Pi, you can do all of this and more.
Get acquainted with hardware features on the Pi’s board
Learn enough Linux to move around the operating system
Pick up the basics of Python and Scratch—and start programming
Draw graphics, play sounds, and handle mouse events with the Pygame framework
Use the Pi’s input and output pins to do some hardware hacking
Discover how Arduino and the Raspberry Pi complement each other
Integrate USB webcams and other peripherals into your projects
NEW BOOK – Python for Kids – A Playful Introduction to Programming. Python is a powerful, expressive programming language that’s easy to learn and fun to use! But books about learning to program in Python can be kind of dull, gray, and boring, and that’s no fun for anyone. Featuring original artwork by Miran Lipovača. Full color, over 344 pages.
Python for Kids brings Python to life and brings you (and your parents) into the world of programming. The ever-patient Jason R. Briggs will guide you through the basics as you experiment with unique (and often hilarious) example programs that feature ravenous monsters, secret agents, thieving ravens, and more. New terms are defined; code is colored, dissected, and explained; and quirky, full-color illustrations keep things on the lighter side.
Chapters end with programming puzzles designed to stretch your brain and strengthen your understanding. By the end of the book you’ll have programmed two complete games: a clone of the famous Pong and “Mr. Stick Man Races for the Exit”—a platform game with jumps, animation, and much more.
As you strike out on your programming adventure, you’ll learn how to:
Use fundamental data structures like lists, tuples, and maps
Organize and reuse your code with functions and modules
Use control structures like loops and conditional statements
Draw shapes and patterns with Python’s turtle module
Create games, animations, and other graphical wonders with tkinter
Why should serious adults have all the fun? Python for Kids is your ticket into the amazing world of computer programming.
NEW PRODUCT! Make: Lego and Arduino Projects – Make amazing robots and gadgets with two of today’s hottest DIY technologies. With this easy-to-follow guide, you’ll learn how to build devices with Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 and the Arduino prototyping platform. Mindstorms alone lets you create incredible gadgets. Bring in Arduino for some jaw-dropping functionality—and open a whole new world of possibilities.
Build a drink dispenser, music synthesizer, wireless lamp, and more.
Each fun and fascinating project includes step-by-step instructions and clear illustrations to guide you through the process. Learn how to set up an Arduino programming environment, download the sketches and libraries you need, and work with Arduino’s language for non-programmers. It’s a perfect book for students, teachers, hobbyists, makers, hackers, and kids of all ages.
Build a Drawbot that roams around and traces its path with a marker pen
Construct an analog Mindstorms clock with hands that display the correct time
Create a machine that mixes a glass of chocolate milk at the touch of a button
Make a Gripperbot rolling robotic arm that you control wirelessly with Arduinos mounted on your arms
Explore electronic music by building a guitar-shaped Lego synthesizer
Build a Lego lamp with on/off and dimmer switches that you control with a smartphone application
Jump feet first into the world of electronics, from learning Ohm’s Law to working with basic components
John Baichtal is a contributor to MAKE magazine and Wired’s GeekDad blog. He is the co-author of The Cult of Lego and author of Hack This: 24 Incredible Hackerspace Projects from the DIY Movement.
Matthew Beckler is a graduate student in EE at Carnegie Mellon University, and is a co-founder of Wayne and Layne, LLC, where he makes open source hardware.
Adam Wolf is a firmware engineer at an electronic design services company, and is a co-founder of Wayne and Layne, LLC, where he makes open source hardware.
Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, by Chris Anderson, Random House Business
Anderson brings evangelical zeal to the story of how ever-cheaper 3D printing is shaking up the world of manufacturing. He weaves his own attempts to build working models and whole businesses with themes familiar from his previous books The Long Tail and Free, which extolled the virtues of cheap digital distribution and open-sourcing.
In Makers, Wired editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson reveals that a new industrial revolution is under way. Today’s entrepreneurs, using open-source design and 3-D printing, are employing micro-manufacturing techniques to create a tsunami of products in small batches, often customized for specific customers at higher margins.
Every country, to remain economically strong, must make physical products if it doesn’t want to become a nation of burger flippers and checkout clerks. Yet in America and Europe, it has become harder and harder to sustain manufacturing as entire industries, from clothing to electronics, have shifted their factories to Asia and other low-cost regions. In the United States, manufacturing employment as a percentage of total working population is at a century-long low.
The solution, Anderson says, is in a desktop manufacturing revolution that will change the world as much as the personal computer did. The tools of factory production, from digital fabrication to online factory services, are now available to everyone; garage start-ups can make products in batches as small as a single unit or as large as tens of thousands. Anyone with an idea can set assembly lines into motion with little more than a keystroke.
Moreover, thanks to crowdfunding and social financing at companies like Kickstarter and Quirky, entrepreneurs are no longer dependent on venture capitalists or investment banks to finance their ideas. And with the global reach of the Internet, entrepreneurs are able to sell their products to consumers at home and around the world instantly, while start-ups like Etsy create new platforms and markets to bring buyers and sellers together.
Just as the Web ended the monopoly of mass media, so it is now ending the monopoly of mass manufacturing. Over the next ten years, Anderson explains, countless micro-manufacturers, based on open-source design and DIY manufacturing, will help drive the next big movement in the global economy as the power of bytes—the Long Tail—is transformed into the power to make things again, the Long Tail of things.
CHRIS ANDERSON is the editor in chief of Wired, which he has led to multiple National Magazine Award nominations, as well as winning the prestigious top prize for General Excellence in 2005, 2007, and 2009. In 2009, the magazine was named Magazine of the Decade by the editors of AdWeek. He is the co-founder of 3D Robotics, a fast-growing manufacturer of aerial robots, and DIY Drones. Anderson is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The MagPi magazine has been published online each month since May 2012. Each 32 page magazine is created entirely by enthusiasts using the Raspberry Pi. It can be read online or downloaded for free from our website, www.TheMagPi.com, which receives 100,000 hits every month.
We have always wanted to make the magazine available in printed form, so we did a test print run of issue 6. The result was a large number of requests for all back issues to be printed. However there are significant upfront costs associated with professionally printing a magazine and a significant volume of magazines must be printed to get the price point to where we want it to be.
Want to know how to use an electronic component? This first book of a three-volume set includes key information on electronics parts for your projects—complete with photographs, schematics, and diagrams. You’ll learn what each one does, how it works, why it’s useful, and what variants exist. No matter how much you know about electronics, you’ll find fascinating details you’ve never come across before.
Convenient, concise, well-organized, and precise
Perfect for teachers, hobbyists, engineers, and students of all ages, this reference puts reliable, fact-checked information right at your fingertips—whether you’re refreshing your memory or exploring a component for the first time. Beginners will quickly grasp important concepts, and more experienced users will find the specific details their projects require. 304 pages. PDF sampler here.
Unique: the first and only encyclopedia set on electronic components, distilled into three separate volumes
Incredibly detailed: includes information distilled from hundreds of sources
Easy to browse: parts are clearly organized by component type
Authoritative: fact-checked by expert advisors to ensure that the information is both current and accurate
Reliable: a more consistent source of information than online sources, product datasheets, and manufacturer’s tutorials
Instructive: each component description provides details about substitutions, common problems, and workarounds
Comprehensive: Volume 1 covers power, electromagnetism, and discrete semi-conductors; Volume 2 includes integrated circuits, and light and sound sources; Volume 3 covers a range of sensing devices.
Charles Platt became interested in computers when he acquired an Ohio Scientific C4P in 1979. After writing and selling software by mail order, he taught classes in BASIC programming, MS-DOS, and subsequently Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. He wrote five computer books during the 1980s.
He has also written science fiction novels such as The Silicon Man (published originally by Wired books) and Protektor (from Avon Books). He stopped writing science fiction when he started contributing to Wired magazine in 1993, and became one of its three senior writers a couple of years later.
Charles began contributing to Make magazine in its third issue and is currently a contributing editor. Currently he is designing and building prototypes of medical equipment in his workshop in a northern Arizona wilderness area.
In Makers, Wired editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson reveals that a new industrial revolution is under way. Today’s entrepreneurs, using open-source design and 3-D printing, are employing micro-manufacturing techniques to create a tsunami of products in small batches, often customized for specific customers at higher margins.
Every country, to remain economically strong, must make physical products if it doesn’t want to become a nation of burger flippers and checkout clerks. Yet in America and Europe, it has become harder and harder to sustain manufacturing as entire industries, from clothing to electronics, have shifted their factories to Asia and other low-cost regions. In the United States, manufacturing employment as a percentage of total working population is at a century-long low.
The solution, Anderson says, is in a desktop manufacturing revolution that will change the world as much as the personal computer did. The tools of factory production, from digital fabrication to online factory services, are now available to everyone; garage start-ups can make products in batches as small as a single unit or as large as tens of thousands. Anyone with an idea can set assembly lines into motion with little more than a keystroke.
Moreover, thanks to crowdfunding and social financing at companies like Kickstarter and Quirky, entrepreneurs are no longer dependent on venture capitalists or investment banks to finance their ideas. And with the global reach of the Internet, entrepreneurs are able to sell their products to consumers at home and around the world instantly, while start-ups like Etsy create new platforms and markets to bring buyers and sellers together.
Just as the Web ended the monopoly of mass media, so it is now ending the monopoly of mass manufacturing. Over the next ten years, Anderson explains, countless micro-manufacturers, based on open-source design and DIY manufacturing, will help drive the next big movement in the global economy as the power of bytes—the Long Tail—is transformed into the power to make things again, the Long Tail of things.
CHRIS ANDERSON is the editor in chief of Wired, which he has led to multiple National Magazine Award nominations, as well as winning the prestigious top prize for General Excellence in 2005, 2007, and 2009. In 2009, the magazine was named Magazine of the Decade by the editors of AdWeek. He is the co-founder of 3D Robotics, a fast-growing manufacturer of aerial robots, and DIY Drones. Anderson is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Wow, check out this video “Making of” for an “Electro-Library” diploma project for the the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice (Poland), inspired by El Lissitzky’s manifesto published in 1923.
Lissitzky told us that ‘the new book demands the new writer’, and with the advent of the iPhone, the iPad and the Kindle, the new book is undeniably here. But there is more to it than even Lissitzky dreamed of. The nature of the e-book now means that the new book demands a new kind of writer, reader and designer.
The Electro-Library demands that we reconsider every aspect of page design – from the details that we understood to represent the craft of typography, to the elements of the page itself: the running heads, the folios, the paragraph and chapter. The ‘design of the book-space, set according to the constraints of printing mechanics’ no longer matters to us. This new page is an undiscovered landscape of opportunity and possibility.
The surface can now truly transcend space and time – the ‘printed’ surface must be re-invented and the infinity of books embraced. The rules no longer apply.
Everything about the page is new again. Everything we ‘know’ about the conventions of book design and typography demands to be re-invented for the new kind of writer, reader and designer.
Create innovative programs and fun games on your tiny yet powerful Raspberry Pi. In this book, electronics guru Simon Monk explains the basics of Raspberry Pi application development, while providing hands-on examples and ready-to-use scripts. See how to set up hardware and software, write and debug applications, create user-friendly interfaces, and control external electronics. Do-it-yourself projects include a hangman game, an LED clock, and a software-controlled roving robot.
Boot up and configure your Raspberry Pi
Navigate files, folders, and menus
Create Python programs using the IDLE editor
Work with strings, lists, and functions
Use and write your own libraries, modules, and classes
Add Web features to your programs
Develop interactive games with Pygame
Interface with devices through the GPIO port
Build a Raspberry Pi Robot and LED Clock
Build professional-quality GUIs using Tkinter
Dr. Simon Monk has a degree in Cybernetics and Computer Science and a PhD in Software Engineering. He spent several years as an academic before he returned to industry, co-founding the mobile software company Momote Ltd. Dr. Monk has been an active electronics hobbyist since his early teens and is a full-time writer on hobby electronics and open source hardware. He is the author of numerous electronics books, including 30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius and Arduino + Android Projects for the Evil Genius, as well as co-author of Practical Electronics for Inventors, Third Edition.
Printable catalog (PDF)
FEED
