Reuse Features Heavily at Make Magazine

• Awesome Make: Electronics book/tool kit bundle offer

  The Maker Shed has put together a great electronics tool kit, with all of the essential tools one needs to get started in electronics. The kit includes a 30w adjustable soldering iron, a digital multimeter, a soldering stand, a Panavise Jr, various handtools, solder, spools of hook-up wire, and a Maker's Notebook. It even comes with a kit to practice on, the WeeBlinky. Those rascally elves in the Shed have combined the toolkit with our new Make: Electronics book to create the Deluxe Make: Electronics Tool Kit. The regular kit sells for $114.99. The Deluxe kit sells for $124.99. So, basically, you get Make: Electronics (normally $34.99) for ten bucks! What a deal! Check out the FREE shipping offer from the Maker Shed. (orders of $100 or more, Contiguous US only, not to be combined with any other offers) Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toolbox | Digg this! - 89 minutes ago

• Learning electronics just got A LOT easier!

  I'm thrilled to announce our latest offering from O'Reilly/Make: Books, Make: Electronics, by Charles Platt. This is a book that we've wanted to do for awhile. Many of us at Maker Media have had an interaction that goes something like this: You're at a talk, Maker Faire, or elsewhere, and someone spirits you aside, like they're going to confess to a petty crime or some marital indiscretion. What they want to whisper sheepishly into your ear is that they love MAKE, all of the excitement they see over open source electronics, and the cool kits we sell in the Maker Shed, but they have NO IDEA how electronics work, and the "beginner" books and resources they look at online zoom quickly over their heads and frustrate their efforts to learn. Ultimately, they find themselves too embarrassed to admit their lack of high-tech smarts or to ask questions (which is why they've taken you behind a dumpster to confess their ignorance). So we decided to make it our mission to create a book that would patiently guide readers into the world of electronics in a way that was fun, clear-spoken, graphical, and experiential. Charles dubbed it "learning by discovery." He has you experimenting with parts right out of the gate, licking batteries (really), breaking and frying stuff, and then you learn what happened and why, the theories behind the parts and processes, and how to do the experiment correctly. For all of those would-be makers and wireheads who've been looking for a book that will finally let them in on all the fun, we made this one for you! In 340+ pages, Make: Electronics takes you from the most basic aspects of electronic components and theory to essential techniques, such as soldering and using a multimeter, gathering basic tools and setting up a workshop, all the way up to working with integrated circuits, microcontrollers, and building sophisticated devices such as robots. The book is full-color, with hundreds of photos, illustrations, schematics, even fun cartoons. Charles Platt, being the true Renaissance man that he is, did all of this himself. So the book has something of a charming, handmade feel to it. To give you an idea of what the book feels like, we've put together this 40-page PDF. It contains the cover, table of contents, two complete projects from the book, and the index. A hearty congrats to Charles and everyone at O'Reilly and MAKE who worked so hard to make this book happen, especially Brian Jepson, Rachel Monaghan, Ron Bilodeau, and Nancy Kotary. And to the amazing Bunnie Huang, who served as our technical editor. In the Maker Shed: Make: Electronics Our Price: $34.99 Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Start working on some excellent projects as soon as you crack open this unique, hands-on book. Build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them! With Make: Electronics, you'll learn all of the basic components and important principles through a series of "learn by discovery" experiments. And you don't need to know a thing about electricity to get started. Check out the FREE shipping offer from the Maker Shed. (orders of $100 or more, Contiguous US only, not to be combined with any other offers) Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this! - 2 hours ago

• Awesome wasp junk art

  I have seen lots of junk sculptures in my time, but few if any have impressed me as much as this one by artist S. Allen which, as of this morning, was available for sale at Seattle's Great Stuff boutique. And since it's reportedly priced at $4,500 US, it probably still is. [via Boing Boing] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this! - 2 hours ago