Cool Stuff Exploded [Hardcover]

Chris Woodford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2008 | Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

The third installment of our visually stunning and incredibly successful Cool Stuff series will blow your mind. This super cool technology book deconstructs-or literally explodes-everyday objects so readers can see exactly how they work. Beautifully photographed spreads show a piece-by-piece breakdown of cell phones, computers, cars, and more, detailing how each part works and how they all fit together as a whole. This unique look at the items we use every day brings science, technology, and wonder to the fore, giving us all a great appreciation for how our twenty-first-century world works. Set into the cover is a CD-ROM containing animations of the "exploded" views featured in the book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The "Cool Stuff" in the title refers to things like digital cameras, cell phones, and watches. The "Exploded" part refers to how the insides of those things are represented in the book. Everyday things are not the only things "exploded" in the book. Exotic items such as fuel cell cars, sonic washers, and Flexi phones are also on the list. Some of you may be thinking...it would REALLY be cool if they would animate the "explosion." Well, the author thought of that and included a CD with fifteen animated "energetic disassembly" of the items from the book. --Rainy Day Magazine

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: DK Publishing; Har/Cdr edition (September 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0756640288
• ISBN-13: 978-0756640286
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 10.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars bit disappointing, October 13, 2008

By 

Krishna Jagannath "KRISHJAG" (London,UK) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cool Stuff Exploded (Hardcover)

The earlier two books in the series Cool Stuff 2.0 and How Cool Stuff Works were much more informative and had a plethora of cool new techy gadgets>

This book is not in the same genre though from the same stable - there are big exploded parts of objects as diverse as an Airbus aeroplane to a coffee percolator - I was probably expecting stuff on how it works which is missing.

CDROM took time to load and had no music for the animation nor labelling for the parts and had only some of the objects described in the book.

I feel the book would have done better had there been an attempt to show cross-sections - its too early to have Cool stuff 3.0>

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Coffee Table book, not a Science book, March 23, 2009

By 

Dr J. Scott "Scientist" (Santa Rosa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cool Stuff Exploded (Hardcover)

This book is lovely to look at, but less informative and rigorous than you might like. For example, the exploded views are often missing crucial components... forgive me for being picky, but I reckon the mainspring of a watch and the crankshaft of a mountain bike are fairly important parts that ought not to be omitted because they are disruptive to depict. As other reviewers have said, this might look fantastic but it will do little to help your understanding.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Series, September 18, 2008

By 

CoralAmber (Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cool Stuff Exploded (Hardcover)

This is an awesome book that shows the individual pieces of each gadget and explains briefly how it works. Very large and crisp pictures like all DK books. With the variety of gadgets and everyday objects, including future tech, this book will appeal to older readers as well as DK's usually young audience. There are many fold out pages that show 4 page spreads of "exploded" stuff.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because the CDROM, while it has cool animations of a few gadgets, it doesn't show all the gadgets. Besides watching the stuff "explode" the CDROM isn't interactive, and it doesn't label the parts. It's mostly a gimmick that looks impressive, but isn't very useful. Don't let that stop you from getting this great book, just don't expect much from the CDROM.