Making music doesn’t have to be about dropping big bucks in the guitar shop or endlessly fiddling with expensive software. You can make good noise out of bits of wood and wire, plastic and steel. When you build your own instruments, creating your own sound comes naturally. Junkyard Jam Band is a step-by-step guide to making a full array of complete musical projects—no previous carpentry or electronics experience required. Each build includes tips on how to coax the best sounds out of the instrument and encourages you to mod the project to fit your own style. Learn how to: –Bust up your old tape decks for a handheld old-skool Scratchbox –Give your voice a robotic makeover with the Droid Voicebox –Circuit-bend unsuspecting childhood toys into mutant glitching jazz-punk machines –Transform cigar boxes into thumb pianos and electric ukuleles –Build a crackling, multifunction Mud-n-Sizzle Preamp to attach to any electric music machine Along the way, you’ll explore the physics behind wind instruments, discover how harmonics work, and get your feet wet with some music theory. To top it all off, the back of the book includes a soldering primer for total beginners, along with extra circuits to customize your instruments even further. Build your own band your way!

Making music doesn’t have to be about dropping big bucks in the guitar shop or endlessly fiddling with expensive software. You can make good noise out of bits of wood and wire, plastic and steel. When you build your own instruments, creating your own sound comes naturally. Junkyard Jam Band is a step-by-step guide to making a full array of complete musical projects—no previous carpentry or electronics experience required. Each build includes tips on how to coax the best sounds out of the instrument and encourages you to mod the project to fit your own style. Learn how to: –Bust up your old tape decks for a handheld old-skool Scratchbox –Give your voice a robotic makeover with the Droid Voicebox –Circuit-bend unsuspecting childhood toys into mutant glitching jazz-punk machines –Transform cigar boxes into thumb pianos and electric ukuleles –Build a crackling, multifunction Mud-n-Sizzle Preamp to attach to any electric music machine Along the way, you’ll explore the physics behind wind instruments, discover how harmonics work, and get your feet wet with some music theory. To top it all off, the back of the book includes a soldering primer for total beginners, along with extra circuits to customize your instruments even further. Build your own band your way!

10 LED Projects for Geeks is a collection of interactive and customizable projects that all have the humble LED in common, but don’t write them off as basic! You’ll learn how to make challenging and imaginative gadgets like a magic wand that controls lights using hand gestures, a pen-sized controller for music synthesizers, a light strip that dances to the beat of music, and even an LED sash that flashes scrolling text you send from your phone. Every project includes photos, step-by-step directions, colorful circuit diagrams, and the complete code to bring the project to life. As you work your way through the book, you’ll pick up adaptable skills that will take your making abilities to the next level. You’ll learn how to: - Design versatile circuits for your own needs - Build and print a custom printed circuit board - Create flexible circuits which you can use to make any wearable you dream up - Turn analog signal into digital data your microcontroller can read - Use gesture recognition and wireless interaction for your own Internet of Things projects - Experiment with copper tape and create circuits with paper and foil - Build "smart" gadgets that make decisions with sensors If you want to experiment with LEDs and circuits, learn some new skills, and make cool things along the way, 10 LED Projects for Geeks is your first step.

Where will you be when the zombie apocalypse hits? Trapping yourself in the basement? Roasting the family pet? Beheading reanimated neighbors? No way. You’ll be building fortresses, setting traps, and hoarding supplies, because you, savvy survivor, have snatched up your copy of The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse before it’s too late. This indispensable guide to survival after Z-day, written by hardware hacker and zombie anthropologist Simon Monk, will teach you how to generate your own electricity, salvage parts, craft essential electronics, and out-survive the undead.,p>Take charge of your environment: –Monitor zombie movement with trip wires and motion sensors –Keep vigilant watch over your compound with Arduino and Raspberry Pi surveillance systems –Power zombie defense devices with car batteries, bicycle generators, and solar power Escape imminent danger: –Repurpose old disposable cameras for zombie-distracting flashbangs –Open doors remotely for a successful sprint home –Forestall subplot disasters with fire and smoke detectors Communicate with other survivors: –Hail nearby humans using Morse code –Pass silent messages with two-way vibration walkie-talkies –Fervently scan the airwaves with a frequency hopper For anyone from the budding maker to the keen hobbyist, The Maker’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse is an essential survival tool. Uses the Arduino Uno board and Raspberry Pi Model B+ or Model 2

Processing is a free, beginner-friendly programming language designed to help non-programmers create interactive art with code. The SparkFun Guide to Processing, the first in the SparkFun Electronics series, will show you how to craft digital artwork and even combine that artwork with hardware so that it reacts to the world around you. Start with the basics of programming and animation as you draw colorful shapes and make them bounce around the screen. Then move on to a series of hands-on, step-by-step projects that will show you how to: –Make detailed pixel art and scale it to epic proportions –Write a maze game and build a MaKey MaKey controller with fruit buttons –Play, record, and sample audio to create your own soundboard –Fetch weather data from the Web and build a custom weather dashboard –Create visualizations that change based on sound, light, and temperature readings With a little imagination and Processing as your paintbrush, you’ll be on your way to coding your own gallery of digital art in no time! Put on your artist’s hat, and begin your DIY journey by learning some basic programming and making your first masterpiece with The SparkFun Guide to Processing. The code in this book is compatible with Processing 2 and Processing 3.

Why do the lights in a house turn on when you flip a switch? How does a remote-controlled car move? And what makes lights on TVs and microwaves blink? The technology around you may seem like magic, but most of it wouldn’t run without electricity. Electronics for Kids demystifies electricity with a collection of awesome hands-on projects. In Part 1, you’ll learn how current, voltage, and circuits work by making a battery out of a lemon, turning a metal bolt into an electromagnet, and transforming a paper cup and some magnets into a spinning motor. In Part 2, you’ll make even more cool stuff as you: –Solder a blinking LED circuit with resistors, capacitors, and relays –Turn a circuit into a touch sensor using your finger as a resistor –Build an alarm clock triggered by the sunrise –Create a musical instrument that makes sci-fi soundsThen, in Part 3, you’ll learn about digital electronics—things like logic gates and memory circuits—as you make a secret code checker and an electronic coin flipper. Finally, you’ll use everything you’ve learned to make the LED Reaction Game—test your reaction time as you try to catch a blinking light!With its clear explanations and assortment of hands-on projects, Electronics for Kids will have you building your own circuits in no time.

This ebook collects the nearly 300 stories that first appeared in The Magazine, an independent biweekly periodical for narrative non-fiction. It covers researchers "crying wolf," learning to emulate animal sounds; DIY medical gear, making prosthetics and other tools available more cheaply and to the developing world; a fever in Japan that leads to a new friendship; saving seeds to save the past; the plan to build a giant Lava Lamp in eastern Oregon; Portland's unicycle-riding, Darth Vader mask-wearing, flaming bagpipe player; a hidden library at MIT that contains one of the most extensive troves of science fiction and fantasy novels and magazines in the world; and far, far more.