Maker Books for Kids, Teens, and Adults!
Making Simple Robots, 2nd Edition
Easy Robotics Projects for Kids Using Everyday Stuff
Learn how to make everything from gravity-powered walkers to light-up origami hoppers to virtual online chatbots and programmable robo-bugs!
All projects use everyday materials and only low-cost, easy-to-find electronics.
Great for ages 7 through teens!
All the electronics you need for Making Simple Robots, plus a few extra supplies. Add a couple of DC motors from Adafruit and you have enough electronics for all the projects in BOTS! as well!
BOTS!
Robotics Engineering
with Makerspace Activities for Kids
A brand-new update to the classic Robotics: Discover the Science and Technology of the Future, named a Chicago Public Library "Best of the Best" book in 2012!
Get a hands-on introduction to the amazing world of robots! You’ll learn about their history, explore the systems that make them function, and meet the people who help use and develop new machines.
Then, you’ll use everyday crafts materials, household supplies, plus some easy-to-find electronics to build your own working robot models that walk, react to light, sound, and touch, and even think!
Find out what robots can do today — and get a peek at what they may learn to do tomorrow!
Projects include:
Make a robot hand that opens and closes!
Build a hydraulic robot arm!
Design your own motorized ArtBot!
Mix up some edible stretchable robot skin!
Learn to code a virtual robot in Scratch!
Build a programmable cardboard robot in MakeCode!
Paper Inventions
Machines That Move, Drawings That Light Up, Wearables and Structures You Can Cut, Fold, and Roll
Find out where paper comes from, learn about unusual ways it’s used in everything from construction to electronics to fashion design, and make fun and decorative projects that demonstrate concepts in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Perfect for kids, parents, and educators, Paper Inventions contains full color photographs, illustrations and templates that allow you to follow along or create your own designs.
Projects include:
Paper circuits, switches, and sensors to create light-up art
Heat-activated paper that folds itself into 3D shapes
Action origami robot inchworms
Wild geometric models like hexaflexagons and dragon fractals
Recycled paper wearables and home decor
Paper machines with cranks and gears
A geodesic dome clubhouse -- made from rolled-up newspaper!
Video Games
Design and Code Your Own Adventure
Why are games are so popular? What do ancient board and dice games have in common with electronic games today?
In Video Games, you’ll explore geometry, physics, probability, psychology and project management while creating and testing your own board, card, and computer games!
In Video Games, you’ll explore geometry, physics, probability, psychology and project management while creating and testing your own board, card, and computer games!
Follow the steps real game industry professionals go through to bring a game from concept to reality, and find out what top college game design programs are looking for. You’ll even learn coding basics using free online Scratch software from MIT!
Video Games is a great hands-on introduction to video game design for kids and teens who want to understand how games work and start to build the games of the future!
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Edible Inventions
Delicious and exotic experiments that teach science concepts and the history behind them!
Explore 3D printing with chocolate
Bubble up some chemical cuisine
Hack your favorite snacks
Regrow Zombie Veggies
Go off the grid with Solar Ovens
Fabric and Fiber Inventions
Discover how easy it is to turn everyday materials into unique designs everybody will love!
Create fabric photographic prints
Upcycle old t-shirts and sweaters into fun new wearables
Crochet cute roll-up scarf sculptures
Enter the world of e-textiles with light-up keychains and audio speakers made from yarn!
Musical Inventions
Explore the properties of sound by making instruments from ordinary household supplies, old toys — even vegetables and paper!
Make a cigar box guitar and candy tin steel drum!
Explore the relation of wavelength to pitch with a drinking straw flute!
Create new sounds by circuit bending a musical greeting card and turning AM radios into a synthesizer!
