Hack This: 24 Incredible Hackerspace Projects from the DIY Movement [Paperback]

John Baichtal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2011 | ISBN-10: 0789748975 | ISBN-13: 978-0789748973 | Edition: 1

Join today’s new revolution in creativity and community: hackerspaces. Stop letting other people build everything for you: Do it yourself. Explore, grab the tools, get hands-on, get dirty…and create things you never imagined you could. Hack This is your glorious, full-color passport to the world of hackerspaces: your invitation to share knowledge, master tools, work together, build amazing stuff–and have a flat-out blast doing it.

 

Twin Cities Maker co-founder John Baichtal explains it all: what hackerspaces are, how they work, who runs them, what they’re building—and how you can join (or start!) one. Next, he walks you through 24 of today’s best hackerspace projects…everything from robotic grilled-cheese sandwich-makers to devices that make music with zaps of electricity. Every project’s packed with color photos, explanations, lists of resources and tools, and instructions for getting started on your own similar project so you can DIY!

 

JUST SOME OF THE PROJECTS YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT INCLUDE…

• Kung-fu fighting robots

• Home-brewed Geiger counter

• TransAtlantic balloon

• Twitter-monitoring Christmas tree

• Sandwich-making robot

• Interactive Space Invaders mural

• CNC mill that carves designs into wood, plastic and metal

• Telepresence robot that runs an Internet classroom

• Toy cars that are ridden by people

• Bronze-melting blast furnace

• Laptop-controlled robot fashioned from a wheelchair

• DIY book scanner

 

JOHN BAICHTAL is a founding member of Twin Cities Maker, a hackerspace organization that has been collaborating for almost two years. Based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, Twin  ities Maker has its own rented warehouse complete with a welding station, woodshop, classroom, and ham radio transmitter. Baichtal has written dozens of articles, including pieces for AKE, the D&D publication Kobold Quarterly, and 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. He has contributed to Wired.com’s GeekDad blog for four years and blogged at Make: Online for two, publishing more than 1,500 posts during that time. He is now writing a book about Lego.

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Baichtal is a founding member of Twin Cities Maker, a hackerspace organization that has been collaborating for almost two years. Twin Cities Maker has its own rented warehouse, the Hack Factory, complete with a welding station, a woodshop, a classroom, and an electronics area. John is currently writing The Cult of Lego, a book about adult Lego builders for No Starch Press. He has written dozens of articles for print, including pieces for MAKE Magazine, Kobold Quarterly (a D&D magazine), and 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. He has blogged for Wired.com (GeekDad blog) for four years and Make: Online for a year, with more than 1,000 posts published during that time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Que Publishing; 1 edition (October 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789748975
• ISBN-13: 978-0789748973
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #989,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Baichtal got his start writing blog posts for Wired's legendary GeekDad blog as well as the DIYer's bible MAKE Magazine. From there he branched out into authoring books about toys, tools, robots, and hobby electronics. He is the co-author of The Cult of Lego (No Starch) and author of Hack This: 24 Incredible Hackerspace Projects from the DIY Movement as well as Basic Robot Building With Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 (both from Que). Most recently he wrote Make: Lego and Arduino Projects for MAKE, collaborating with Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler. He lives in Minneapolis, MN, with his wife and 3 children.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hackerspace Primer and Great Gift October 18, 2011

By M. Forr

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I first heard of Hack This, it was because John Baichtal had emailed me asking to use a photo I took that he wanted to feature in this book. In the spirt of hackerspaces everywhere I said ok and preordered a copy of the book.

My bias aside, I think this is a good book if you're not involved in the hackerspace movement but want to be. While each chapter is about a cool project (bat signals to LED signs to book scanners), they're more about the people and spaces behind the projects. The details on each project are pretty light and certainly not enough to show you how to build anything but there's enough names and info in here that you could get a hold of the folks who did the project. It really a collection of interviews interspersed with sidebars about tools, small projects, etc.

The real meat of the book is in the last chapter 'Do It Yourself' where John lays out a solid plan for starting your own hackerspace. I feel that the real purpose of this book is to get the reader pumped up with 24 cool spaces/projects and then send them off to start one in their own town, assuming there isn't one already.

I would recommend this as a gift to someone geeky or someone you want to inspire to get involved in hackerspaces and tech.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! March 16, 2012

By Pete Prodoehl

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book does a great job of giving the reader an overview of hackerspaces, and also gets into a number of projects. As a maker, it's good inspiration when you're thinking of your next project. As a hacker, it's great to see other spaces and the various skills their members possess.