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.
Make amazing robots and gadgets by combining two of the hottest DIY technologies: the venerable LEGO and the upstart Arduino. With this book, you’ll learn how to take LEGO Mindstorms components—motors, sensors, and more—and interface them with the Arduino microcontroller, opening many exciting new options.
You’ll focus on six projects, each more challenging and informative than the next. In each project, you’ll explore different ways that Arduino adds functionality to LEGO Mindstorms. In addition, the authors have created affordable companion kits designed specifically for the projects in this book. Perfect for students, teachers, hobbyists, makers, hackers, and kids.
Build projects such as the Cuckoo Clock, Chocolate Milk Maker, DrawBot, Robot Arm, and more
Learn the basics of Arduino and LEGO Mindstorms
Gain an excellent resource for teaching technology to kids of all ages
Connect the Raspberry Pi to other devices — keyboard, mouse, monitor
Install the necessary software
Learn basic Linux System Admin in order to understand files systems etc.
Configure the Raspberry Pi
Set-up the Raspberry Pi as a simple Productivity computer
Set-up Raspberry Pi as a web server
Write basic programs in Scratch and Python
Create simple hardware projects
Set up the Raspberry Pi to drive a multimedia center
Raspberry Pi User Guide is an ideal companion when starting out using the Raspberry Pi board.
The Raspberry Pi® is a single-board computer developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of stimulating the teaching of basic computer science in schools. The design is based on a Broadcom BCM2835 system on a chip (SoC), which includes an ARM1176JZF-S 700 MHz processor, VideoCore IV GPU, and 256 megabytes of RAM. The design does not include a built-in hard disk or solid-state drive, instead relying on an SD card for booting and long-term storage – Wikipedia.
Raspberry Pi® and logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
“Pictures in a minute!” In the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, Polaroid was the hottest technology company on Earth. They were an innovation machine that cranked out one irresistible product after another. It was even the company after which Steve Jobs is said to have modeled Apple, and the comparison is true. Jobs’s hero, Edwin Land, Polaroid’s visionary founder, turned his 1937 garage startup into a billion-dollar pop-culture phenomenon. Instant: The Story of Polaroid, a richly illustrated, behind-the-scenes look at the company, tells the tale of Land’s extraordinary and beloved invention. From the introduction of Polaroid’s first instant camera in 1948 to its meteoric rise and dramatic collapse into bankruptcy in the 2000s, Instant is both a cautionary tale about tech companies that lose their edge and a remarkable story of American ingenuity. Written in a breezy, accessible tone by New York magazine senior editor Chris Bonanos, this first book-length history of Polaroid also features colorful illustrations from Polaroid’s history, including the company’s iconic branding and marketing efforts.
NEW PRODUCT – Programming Arduino By Simon Monk. Using clear, easy-to-follow examples, Programming Arduino: Getting Started with Sketches reveals the software side of Arduino and explains how to write well-crafted sketches using the modified C language of Arduino. No prior programming experience is required! The downloadable sample programs featured in the book can be used as-is or modified to suit your purposes.
Understand Arduino hardware fundamentals
Install the software, power it up, and upload your first sketch
Learn C language basics
Write functions in Arduino sketches
Structure data using arrays and strings
Use Arduino’s digital and analog inputs and outputs in your programs
Work with the Standard Arduino Library
Write sketches that can store data
Program LCD displays
Use an Ethernet shield to enable Arduino to function as a web server
Write your own Arduino libraries
Make Great Stuff!
TAB, an imprint of McGraw-Hill Professional, is a leading publisher of DIY technology books for makers, hackers, and electronics hobbyists.
Wired magazine editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent — creating “the long tail of things”.
Chris is also co-founder of 3D Robotics, a fast-growing manufacturer of aerial robots, and DIY Drones.
Whether you are a teacher, student, or just someone who wants to teach yourself electronics at home, there are a ton of great books to get you started. Here is a small list of our favorite electronics books which we would recommend for your library.
The Art of Electronics is hands down, my favorite electronics book. This book is not only filled with everything you need to know to get into electronics (and add to your electronics mind bank), it is also extremely easy to follow. Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill have put together a textbook that flows like a novel. Highly recommended for anyone reading this blog.
Building Wireless Sensor Networks by Rob Faludi will have you creating distributed sensor systems and intelligent interactive devices using the ZigBee wireless networking protocol and Series 2 XBee radios. By the time you’re halfway through this fast-paced, hands-on guide, you’ll have built a series of useful projects, including a complete ZigBee wireless network that delivers remotely sensed data.
Hi everyone at Adafruit. I wanted to thank you for the Laser Stamp making tutorial. I just produced $400.00 worth of stamps out of $10.00 in material! … I hate paying so much for these stamps, and you saved us a bunch of money with the tutorial.
Anyway, I wanted to say the tutorial helped me greatly. Here are the stamps I made with my new Epilog Helix 40 (cuts like 50).
Also, this gray rubber I used was very easy to cut with no flame issues. But, I had to save the cutting for the last step, as my stamps took 3 runs (40 speed 100 power) with cleaning after each raster run to avoid flashing. When I used the individual fences to vector cut them out (15, 100, 100), I had to horizontal mirror them on my own since the pure vector operation of the Epilog driver won’t do it if you aren’t rastering a stamp I guess. Maybe my last run could have been combined. That may have worked great too.
Wired magazine editor and bestselling author Chris Anderson takes you to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today’s entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent — creating “the long tail of things”.
This wickedly inventive guide shows you how to program and build a variety of projects with the Arduino microcontroller development system. Covering Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, 30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius gets you up to speed with the simplified C programming you need to know–no prior programming experience necessary.
Using easy-to-find components and equipment, this do-it-yourself book explains how to attach an Arduino board to your computer, program it, and connect electronics to it to create fiendishly fun projects. The only limit is your imagination!
NEW PRODUCT – Transistor Man Shirt! Did you know that inside every transistor is a little man whose job it is to watch the incoming base current and adjust the collector-emitter impedance to match the datasheet? Its true! And now you can celebrate the hard-working guy with this fabulous Transistor Man tee shirt.
Not only did we get a blessing to make these from Cambridge Press, we even got a scan of the original artwork transparency from Professor Hill! These are without a doubt, the coolest NPN shirts we’ve ever seen.
These shirts are directly printed onto high quality American Apparel T’s. The women’s are 100% cotton, the men’s sizes are a 50/50 poly-cotton blend. We find these shirts to be a little more expensive than the common ‘Hanes’ T’s but they’re much more comfortable and better fitting — especially the women’s sizes! All shirts are black with white ink. Please check the links above to American Apparel for detailed fitting information.
The L0pht was not the first hacker space, in fact at the time of its creation in Boston there were at least two other such spaces, Sinister House and Messiah Village, which later moved and became New Hack City, or simply New Hack. L0pht wasn’t even the cause of the recent explosion of hacker spaces across the globe. I like to think that as an early trail blazer L0pht had at least some influence in that explosion but I have no evidence to support it.
A few years ago I read about the Hacker Space Passport which I thought was a really cool idea except that my, and most peoples, do-it-yourself craft abilities are mostly sub optimal meaning that if I attempted to construct the Hacker Space Passport it would look like total crap. So I promptly forgot about it and went along with my day. But the idea was still sound, as you visit different Hacker Spaces or cons you would get a stamp in your Passport verifying your visit and giving you a sort of memento of your stay. Almost exactly like a real passport without the freedom grope, personal questions, and suspicious looks.
Hackerspace Passport. There are hundreds of hackerspaces around the world – teaching, sharing and becoming valuable parts of their local communities. As makers travel from place to place a popular thing to do is to visit a local hackerspace and get your very own hackerspace passport stamped! Adafruit is pleased to have these in stock now! We spent a long time testing different materials and embossing to make these Hackerspace passports something you’ll have for a lifetime.
These are high-quality and durable passports with beautiful silver embossing, they’re very similar to passports, but for hackerspaces!
Here’s how Mitch Altman (TV-B-Gone, Brain Machine) who came up with Hackerspace Passport, describes them!
I created Hackerspace Passports to:
help promote people visiting as many hackerspaces around the world as possible
increase collaboration
increase cross-pollination so we can all learn from one another
encourage all hackerspaces to support each other
(And it’s fun.)
These Hackerspace Passports look a lot like US Passports, but no fingerprints needed! And, rather than a requirement for passing borders, they are intended to encourage it! Hackerspace and hacker cons around the world have made their own stamps, so people can get their Hackerspace Passport stamped everywhere they go! I released the first 2600 of these at Chaos Communication Camp 2011, which seemed appropriate to me, since the previous Camp (in 2007) was the birthplace of the new wave of hackerspaces.
Size:
3.5″ x 5″
Here are some great photos of people using the Hackerspace passports!
Last night I made LVL1′s hackerspace passport using our Full Spectrum Engineering laser. It really was not that difficult. I used Chris Cprek’s LVL1 logo image for the stamp. It is the Plenary Gear logo at the top left of this page.
I used laserable rubber for this project. Even though it is low-odor you can still smell it. It smells like burning rubber from a car.
To laser the image, I took the original image and made it black and white. I removed the blue background and cleaned it up a bit using Gimp. I then imported it into Inkscape where I mirrored the image. The letters have to be in mirror image or it will not stamp correctly. Next, I ‘printed’ to the laser cutter. The Full Spectrum Engineering interface to driving the laser is pretty darned good. If you are reading this post and do not have a laser, check out Full Spectrum, they are a real good value for your money and highly recommended.
I also cut a wooden back for the rubber out of some 1/8″ baltic birch plywood scrap I had laying around. I used double stick tape to tape the rubber onto the plywood backing. Easy. Finally I hot melt glued a handle onto the stamp. Interestingly, the handle came from the Louisville Slugger Museum and it is a scrap from when a baseball bat is cut out on their lathe.
I used a stamp pad from office depot which worked well and Jon was able to stamp his passport for the first time! I also made another stamp with the Lady Ada graphic from Adafruit. That also came out well.
Hackerspace Passport. There are hundreds of hackerspaces around the world – teaching, sharing and becoming valuable parts of their local communities. As makers travel from place to place a popular thing to do is to visit a local hackerspace and get your very own hackerspace passport stamped! Adafruit is pleased to have these in stock now! We spent a long time testing different materials and embossing to make these Hackerspace passports something you’ll have for a lifetime.
These are high-quality and durable passports with beautiful silver embossing, they’re very similar to passports, but for hackerspaces!
Here’s how Mitch Altman (TV-B-Gone, Brain Machine) who came up with Hackerspace Passport, describes them!
I created Hackerspace Passports to:
help promote people visiting as many hackerspaces around the world as possible
increase collaboration
increase cross-pollination so we can all learn from one another
encourage all hackerspaces to support each other
(And it’s fun.)
These Hackerspace Passports look a lot like US Passports, but no fingerprints needed! And, rather than a requirement for passing borders, they are intended to encourage it! Hackerspace and hacker cons around the world have made their own stamps, so people can get their Hackerspace Passport stamped everywhere they go! I released the first 2600 of these at Chaos Communication Camp 2011, which seemed appropriate to me, since the previous Camp (in 2007) was the birthplace of the new wave of hackerspaces.
Size:
3.5″ x 5″
Here are some great photos of people using the Hackerspace passports!
NEW PRODUCT – Hackerspace Passport. There are hundreds of hackerspaces around the world – teaching, sharing and becoming valuable parts of their local communities. As makers travel from place to place a popular thing to do is to visit a local hackerspace and get your very own hackerspace passport stamped! Adafruit is pleased to have these in stock now! We spent a long time testing different materials and embossing to make these Hackerspace passports something you’ll have for a lifetime.
These are High-quality and durable passports with beautiful silver embossing, they’re very similar to passports, but for hackerspaces!
Here’s how Mitch Altman (TV-B-Gone, Brain Machine) who came up with Hackerspace Passport, describes them!
I created Hackerspace Passports to:
help promote people visiting as many hackerspaces around the world as possible
increase collaboration
increase cross-pollination so we can all learn from one another
encourage all hackerspaces to support each other
(And it’s fun.)
These Hackerspace Passports look a lot like US Passports, but no fingerprints needed! And, rather than a requirement for passing borders, they are intended to encourage it! Hackerspace and hacker cons around the world have made their own stamps, so people can get their Hackerspace Passport stamped everywhere they go! I released the first 2600 of these at Chaos Communication Camp 2011, which seemed appropriate to me, since the previous Camp (in 2007) was the birthplace of the new wave of hackerspaces.
Size:
3.5″ x 5″
We’ll have a few tutorials soon on how to: Make your own stamp, workshops for RFID’ing your own hackerspace passports and more!
Here are some great photos of people using the Hackerspace passports!
Printable catalog (PDF)
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