Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things [Paperback]

Cy Tymony (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things is a valuable resource for transforming ordinary objects into the extraordinary. With over 80 solutions and bonus applications at your disposal, you will be ready for almost any situation.

Do you know how to make something that can tell whether the $20 bill in your wallet is a fake? Or how to generate battery power with simple household items? Or how to create your own home security system? Science-savvy author Cy Tymony does. And now you can learn how to create these things and more than 40 other handy gadgets and gizmos in Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things. More than a simple do-it-yourself guide, this quirky collection is a valuable resource for transforming ordinary objects into the extraordinary. With over 80 solutions and bonus applications at your disposal, you will be ready for almost any situation. Included are survival, security, self-defense, and silly applications that are just plain fun. You'll be seen as a superhero as you amaze your friends by:

* Transforming a simple FM radio into a device that enables you to eavesdrop on tower-to-air conversations.

* Creating your own personalized electronic greeting cards.

* Making a compact fire extinguisher from items typically found in a kitchen pantry.

* Thwarting intruders with a single rubber band.

By using run-of-the-mill household items and the easy-to-follow instructions and diagrams within, you'll be able to complete most projects in just a few minutes. Whether you use Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things as a practical tool to build useful devices, a fun little fantasy escape, or as a trivia guide to impress friends and family, this book is sure to be a reference favorite for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Offering readers a chance to become real-life MacGyvers, Tymony (Computer Gamer's Survival Guide) shares a mixed bag of useful and useless tricks. The book, which may remind 007s-in-training of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, offers sections on gimmicks, gadgets and survival techniques (the last section is by far the most valuable). Tymony's tips for fashioning gel packs for swollen muscles (out of water, rubbing alcohol and a plastic bag) and for making a fire extinguisher out of kitchen supplies (with baking soda and vinegar) are undoubtedly functional. But other suggestions, such as placing bubble wrap underneath a doormat to alert you when someone's standing on the other side of your door, or making a videotape rewinder out of a paper clip and a hanger, are somewhat farfetched. Still, adventurous, inquisitive teens may delight in a book that shows them how to "use ordinary objects as sneaky weapons."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Cy Tymony has been creating homemade inventions since childhood. He has appeared on CNN Headline News, ABC's Chicago Morning Show, and NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow, and he has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and Future Life magazine. Cy is a technical writer and computer specialist in Los Angeles, California.


Online:

www.sneakyuses.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; 1st Edition, 7th Printing edition (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740738593
• ISBN-13: 978-0740738593
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Science & Math > Experiments, Instruments & Measurement > Experiments & Projects
  • #28 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Crafts & Hobbies > Reference

More About the Author

Cy Tymony has created his homemade inventions since he was a kid. His imagination and innovative way at looking at the world continues today as a technical writer and computer network specialist in the Los Angeles area. He has appeared on CNN and NPR, and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News & World Report.

Visit the Author's Website:
http://www.sneakyuses.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 112 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Be a hero to your kid / Do things on the cheap November 10, 2006

By Raqi

Format:Paperback

This book isn't / doesn't include 1500 uses for vinegar or how toothpaste gets rid of pimples.

Nope, this book and it's sequel (Sneakier Uses ... ) is chock full of simple gadgets and science experiments you can build in your home using coins, magnets, leaves, etc. Any boy and a lot of girls would love to spend time with a parent, uncle/aunt or godparent putting this Spy Stuff/Survival Equipment/Home Security Systems together.

Included are sneaky sources of power (a battery using coins or fruit); how to scavenge wire (to connect your sneaky battery to something); how to use Mother Nature to help you survive in the wilderness; build radios, amplifiers and wireless microphones (baby monitor?); lights, alarms, telescope. There is also a "Green Lantern" magic ring to control the objects you make.

So let's see: Build useful stuff for the home, office, outdoors; spend time with your kids; teach them some science, creativity, frugality, recycling, how to protect themselves, how to survive. That makes this quite a full package.

When I let one youngster read the table of contents it elicited a series of "ooo's" from him. But you can judge for yourself by using the "Search Inside" feature above.

Just the entry on making your own form-fitting ice pack to place on your strains and sprains makes it worth the price!

As for some previous comments, they are cynical and have no soul and no imagination. They knock the book as nothing more than common sense. I'd like to have seen one make a radio from a toilet paper roll and a penny with no directions, just common sense.... I've got a fairly broad science background and it wouldn't occur to me, particularly not in a pinch of, say, no electricity due to approaching hurricane and I want to hear the warning broadcast. Using a plastic bag and plants to get drinking water is common sense? As for web sites, who is going to think: "Gee, I need to fix the chip in this picture frame. I've got some milk. Maybe I can log on and find a web site that will tell me how to make a maleable plastic compound out of milk." Common sense just isn't all that common, anyway. Read more ›

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A little silly, but fun November 18, 2006

By L. F. Smith TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This book is a sort of training manual for MacGyver wannabes. It's a collection of low-tech, cheap little projects that one can do in order to simulate "real" technology. You could certainly use some of these in an emergency, which is what the author suggests, but that's not really the point of the book in my view.

The real use would be for kids-- or, even better, kids and parents-- who want to mess around with some every day items in ways they haven't previously, have some fun, and enjoy some "Wow! Look at that!" moments. Had the author designed the book explicitly for that purpose, many of the negative reviews here wouldn't have been written.

So, the book is both pretty silly and enjoyable, but it's not any sort of survival manual. A word of advice: Avoid the sequel; the author used all of his good ideas in this volume.

259 of 309 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Compeletely useless June 9, 2005

By S. Hickey

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

With maybe the exception of 5 year olds, this "book" is completely useless. I've had it for 20 minutes and its going in the garbage. Nothing inside this "book" isn't plain ol' common sense. Some of the highlights of this book are:

Using Ordinary Objects as Sneaky Weapons - You can throw coins at an assailant to "stun and throw him or her off balance." Yeah right, that'll work!

Sneaky Wire Sources Are Everywhere - Big surprise, you can use tin foil and speaker wire as spare wire.

Make a Portable Light - Tape a flashlight light bulb to a battery. Wow, that's amazing!

And the most amazing part of the "book":

Capture Break ins On Film - Great project if you don't mind having a large eye sore built next to your door, and the burglar is too dumb to take the disposable camera with him after his picture has been taken.

This is my first time writing a review for anything, but I felt I had for this "book" because its so ridiculous. Even the couple useful things like turning milk into plastic can be found on the web. Obviously the author made up most of this stuff off the top of his head, or found a couple useful things on the web and published it as a "book".

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Ranges from Rube Goldberg to Practical in Nature, Especially for Science Projects September 8, 2006

By Jan Peczkis

Format:Paperback

This small book assembles a considerable range of content. Some of the devices proposed to be constructed (as, for example, a contraption that would photograph an entering burglar) seem so farfetched as to belong to the realm of Rube Goldberg. Others are quite practical. For example, there are simple, helpful tips for foiling intruders and for hiding valuables in homemade safes. A procedure is given for the manual rewinding of cassettes and VCRs. There is a section on survival techniques in the wild. This includes ways of starting a fire, including the use of a sparking arc from an automobile battery.

As a science teacher, I especially appreciate the ideas that can be readily converted into science projects. There are, for example, several different ways that batteries can be made from homemade materials. A homemade telescope can be built. There are various activities that manipulate everyday electronics. There is, for instance, an interesting entry on the modification of an everyday radio so that one can eavesdrop on aircraft pilots' conversations.

Finally, the end of a book contains a list of helpful websites, and books, for further reading.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Silly Rabbit! This book is for kids! September 25, 2008

By Alyssa A. Lappen TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Just in case you didn't understand, let me say at the outset, this book was written and is obviously intended for kids. Boys, most likely, and under the age of 10 or 11 is about right.

For THAT audience, this book is actually quite interesting. If you have a Ph.D. in physics, don't buy it. And if you considered the idea, how did you get that Ph.D., again?

Not to be a smarty, or anything, but I'm really surprised at readers trashing this book because it's not useful. The book is meant to put kids into the discovery mode, to see capabilities in things they might not otherwise have seen, to think outside the box, as it were.

And while not all the suggestions here provide the least bit of interest to an adult, I have to wonder why anyone would have bought this book expecting to get a Master's Degree in Science from it. Geez, the title alone is a dead giveaway.

If this book were published by Brown Paper School, a la The Book of Think: Or, How to Solve a Problem Twice Your Size, it would have five stars from everyone. And apart from the marketing, which should put "for kids" or something like on the cover, the book deserves 5 stars.

Personally, while I've no intention of running the experiment, I found it interesting to read about how to extract drinking water from a plant. Remember, "you can survive a month without food, but only a few days without water."

And for curious kids at least, this book is akin to water.