Contains circuits and project plans for projects you can build regarding science, environmental, and communciations projects. Includes many science fair ideas

Includes circuit designs and explanations for projects you can build for sensors, solare cells, and magnet and magnet sensor projects. Includes many projects appropriate for science fairs.

Forrest M. Mims is a revered contributor to Make: magazine, where his popular columns about science-related topics and projects for Makers are evergreen treasures. Collected together here for the first time, these columns range from such simple projects as building an LED tracker for hand-launched night rockets to such challenging builds as transforming strings of data into unique musical compositions. A variety of photography and imaging projects are featured, including an ultra-sensitive twilight photometer that measures the elevation of layers of dust, smoke, and smog from around 3,000 feet to the top of the stratosphere at 31 miles! Most of the projects can be done with a collection of simple electronic components, such as LEDs, transistors, resistors, and batteries. To inspire and motivate readers, the book also includes profiles of such famous Makers as President Thomas Jefferson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Maverick Scientist is the memoir of Forrest Mims, who forged a distinguished scientific career despite having no academic training in science. Named one of the "50 Best Brains in Science" by Discover magazine, Forrest shares what sparked his childhood curiosity and relates a lifetime of improbable, dramatic, and occasionally outright dangerous experiences in the world of science. At thirteen he invented a new method of rocket control. At seventeen he designed and built an analog computer that could translate Russian into English and that the Smithsonian collected as an example of an early hobby computer. While majoring in government at Texas A&M University, Forrest created a hand-held, radar-like device to help guide the blind. And during his military service, he had to be given special clearance to do top secret laser research at the Air Force Weapons Lab. Why? Because while he lacked the required engineering degree, they wanted his outside-the-box thinking on the project. He went on to co-found MITS, Inc., producer of the first commercially successful personal computer, wrote a series of electronics books for Radio Shack that sold more than seven million copies, and designed the music synthesizer circuit that became known as the infamous Atari Punk Console. All this came before he started consulting for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and NOAA's famous Mauna Loa Observatory, and earning the prestigious Rolex Award. This intimate portrait of a self-made scientist shares a revelatory look inside the scientific community, and tells the story of a lifelong learner who stood by his convictions even when pressured by the establishment to get in line with conventional wisdom. With dozens of personal photos and illustrations, Maverick Scientist serves as proof that to be a scientist, you simply need to do science.

How encounters with strongly electric fish informed our grasp of electricity. Spark from the Deep tells the story of how human beings came to understand and use electricity by studying the evolved mechanisms of strongly electric fish. These animals have the ability to shock potential prey or would-be predators with high-powered electrical discharges. William J. Turkel asks completely fresh questions about the evolutionary, environmental, and historical aspects of people’s interest in electric fish. Stimulated by painful encounters with electric catfish, torpedos, and electric eels, people learned to harness the power of electric shock for medical therapies and eventually developed technologies to store, transmit, and control electricity. Now we look to these fish as an inspiration for engineering new sensors, computer interfaces, autonomous undersea robots, and energy-efficient batteries.

A complete, basic electronics reference manual that includes component and circuit descriptions, tables, math formulas, schematic symbols.