Maker Pro is a book of essays by more than a dozen prominent and up-and-coming professional makers (Maker Pros). Each essay includes advice and stories on topics such as starting a kit-making business, taking a hardware project open-source, and plenty of encouragement to "quit your day job." This book is a reference for anyone who dreams of turning a hobby into a small business, and features stories from well-known professional makers; it will turn aspiration into inspiration.

A fascinating deep dive on innovation from the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Unexpected LifeThe printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery--these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answer...

Discover strange gadgets you never knew existed in this volume from the nation's top collector of curious and interesting information!The writers behind Uncle John's Bathroom Reader present this totally true treasury of amazing gizmos—devilish devices you never knew existed, created by people who thought the world absolutely needed what they had to offer and sell.Read all about:* The onesie that turns your crawling baby into a mop* T...

An updated guide to programming your own Raspberry Pi projectsLearn to create inventive programs and fun games on your powerful Raspberry Pi—with no programming experience required. This practical TAB book has been revised to fully cover the new Raspberry Pi 2, including upgrades to the Raspbian operating system. Discover how to configure hardware and software, write Python scripts, create user-friendly GUIs, and control external electronics. DIY projects include a hangman game, ...

Break out the TV dinners! From the author who gave us Cod, Salt, and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.

Nikola Tesla was a man of letters. He wrote many letters to the editors of the magazines and newspapers of his day. These letters give a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an eccentric genius. Collected here for the first time are more than forty of Nikola Tesla's letters. The subject matter ranges widely, as Tesla was interested in almost everything. In these letters he responds to Marconi and Edison, gives his thoughts on the wars of his day, corrects inconsistencies in news reports, a...

Bitcoin is all the rage these days. But what is it? Most people don't really know or understand much about the decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.But those who do know what it is have heralded it as a revolution as important as that of the internet. Notable people who've had interesting things to say about it include:Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google:"Bitcoin is a technological tour de force."- Fox News, Ma...

Here is one of Nikola Tesla's most important lectures; it brightened the world and everything in it. Of all these phenomena the most important to study' are the current phenomena, on account of the already extensive and evergrowing use of currents for industrial purposes. It is now a century since the first practical source of current was produced, and, ever since, the phenomena which accompany the flow of currents have been diligently studied, and through the untiring efforts of scientifi...

What would today’s technology look like with Victorian-era design and materials? That’s the world steampunk envisions: a mad-inventor collection of 21st century-inspired contraptions powered by steam and driven by gears. In this book, futurist Brian David Johnson and cultural historian James Carrott explore steampunk, a cultural movement that’s captivated thousands of artists, designers, makers, hackers, and writers throughout the world.Just like today, the late 19th century was an...

This companion book to MakerShed's Ultimate Arduino Microcontroller Pack provides 26 clearly explained projects that you can build with this top-selling kit right away--including multicolor flashing lights, timers, tools for testing circuits, sound effects, motor control, and sensor devices.With the Ultimate Arduino Microcontroller Pack, you'll find everything from common components such as resistors and capacitors to specialized sensors and actuators like force-sensing resistors a...

An epic tale of invention, in which ordinary people’s lives are changed forever by their quest to engineer a radically new kind of carIn 2007, the X Prize Foundation announced that it would give $10 million to anyone who could build a safe, mass-producible car that could travel 100 miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. The challenge attracted more than one hundred teams from all over the world, including dozens of amateurs. Many designed their cars ent...

In this entertaining eBooklet, renowned deep thinkers Jimmy Russell and Jack Goldstein discuss the ten greatest inventions they believe humankind has ever seen, using their own unique perspectives on the world in which we live. The result is an entertaining read, and - being careful to distinguish between inventions and discoveries - many readers may be surprised at what appears on the list and what does not. Informative, fun and vaguely educational, this is a great title which will create...