RSS
Archive: Reviews
December 5, 2008
The Manga Guide to Statistics
We recently got a copy of No Starch Press's The Manga Guide to Statistics, by Shin Takahashi - but I didn't get to look at it for a few days because my son snagged it pretty much as it came through the door. Which confirms my theory - if you want to introduce a subject that kids wouldn't normally be very interested in, give it an amusing storyline and wrap it in cartoons.
In The Manga Guide to Statistics, our heroine Rui is determined to learn about statistics to impress the dreamy Mr. Igarashi and begs her father for a tutor. Soon she's spending her Saturdays with geeky, bespectacled Mr. Yamamoto, who patiently teaches her all about the fundamentals of statistics: topics like data categorization, averages, graphing, and standard deviation.Reluctant statistics students of all ages will enjoy learning along with Rui in this charming, easy-to-read guide, which uses real-world examples like teen magazine quizzes, bowling games, test scores, and ramen noodle prices. Examples, exercises, and answer keys help you follow along and check your work. An appendix showing how to perform statistics calculations in Microsoft Excel makes it easy to put Rui's lessons into practice.
Once I (finally!) had a chance to look at the book, I really liked it. I have to admit I wasn't wild about statistics in college; this book was a lot more fun than my statistics textbook. Each chapter starts with a cartoon that's followed by supplemental text, then exercises and a summary, so you have the material presented in several different ways, that helps you remember. The pace of the book is good; the chapters present the concepts in bite-sized pieces and the storyline was funny. I'm sure my son didn't completely learn everything that was presented, but someday, when he's faced with Cramer's coefficient and chi-square distributions (I know I can't protect him from these things forever), he'll have some familiarity with the ideas and they will be easier to learn and use.
No Starch is publishing The Manga Guide to Statistics as the first of a series of educational manga previously published in Japan. We're really looking forward to seeing the rest, especially the one about electricity that's due out in April.
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Dec 5, 2008 07:00 AM
Kids, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Email Entry
December 4, 2008
Handmade duct tape roses, and similar projects @ NYTimes
The Instructables book has a nice little write up in the NYTimes! Penelope Green writes-
The duct tape roses I made over Thanksgiving were fetching (until they were gummed by the cat), but post-turkey lethargy prevented me from digging into the meatiest projects in “The Best of Instructables” (Make: Books; $34.99). One example: the concrete light bulb wall hook, described as “an excellent excuse for driving a lag bolt into your wall” by its inventor, Ray Alderman. He and it are emblematic of the instructables universe, a blogging community of do-it-yourself-ers, robot-makers, food hackers and techno-geeks who share their crafty ways at Make magazine and Instructables (makezine.com and instructables.com), sometimes selling the finished products on etsy.com, the online bazaar for handmade things.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 4, 2008 09:00 AM
Instructables, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
December 1, 2008
Mr Wizard's 400 Experiments in Science
Chris reviewed "The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments" as well as "Mr Wizard's 400 Experiments in Science", he writes -
"Mr Wizards 400 Experiments in Science". (Reno: "Emilio Lizardo is a top scientist, dummkopf." Perfect Tommy: "So was Mr. Wizard." -The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, now available on DVD!). Written by Mr Wizard himself, Don Herbert with Hy Ruchlis, this book is more about demonstrating scientific principles and phenomena in the home with less-sophisticated equipment. No beakers and Bunsen burners, this is all water glasses, pencils, string, tin cans and rubber bands. Just like the original Mr Wizard shows. This stuff is great. This book, thankfully, is a little more affordable! There seem to be several reprints of this with different covers, as you can see from the Amazon link. There's even one called "Soft Blu Bonnet Margarine Presents Mr. Wizard's 400 Easy Experiments in Science by Don Ruchlis, Hy Herbert". Because when I think of melting something on my toast, I want to think of chemistry! And who the heck are these Hy Herbert and Don Ruchlis guys?
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 1, 2008 05:00 AM
Retro, Reviews, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
November 19, 2008
A Revolution in DIY engineering - How to Build With Grid Beam
A review of How to Build With Grid Beam @ The Citizen Scientist. Sheldon writes-
How to Build With Grid Beam is a guide to a clever and flexible system of construction for a wide range of home-built projects, from storage units to work spaces to furniture, vehicles, and structures. The system relies on the use of “sticks” or beams of square tube steel or aluminum or wood with holes placed at regular intervals along the length of each stick. Using lag bolts or other fasteners, these sticks can be assembled quickly and easily into structures that are quite robust and easily adapted and reconfigured. And when you are finished with a project, you simply disassemble the project and use the components for something else. By using adapters and add-ons, most of which can be found in hardware stores, industrial supply houses, or fabricated in even a modestly-equipped shop, the system can be expanded to encompass a staggering array of applications.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 19, 2008 12:00 AM
Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (7)
| Email Entry
November 8, 2008
Another New book at Maker Faire: Getting Started with Arduino
Yesterday I wrote about a great new book that I picked up at Maker Faire. Actually, I picked up 2 new books at Maker Faire, the other one was Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino. Massimo did a great job explaining all about this amazing little micro-controller and basic electronics. Here are some of the topics covered in the book:
- Interaction design and physical computing
- The Arduino hardware and software development environment
- Basics of electricity and electronics
- Prototyping on a solderless breadboard
- Drawing a schematic diagram
Getting Started with Arduino is a great place to start your journey into the amazing, and sometimes crazy, world of micro-controllers and physical computing.
In the Maker Shed:
Make: Arduino
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Nov 8, 2008 08:00 AM
Arduino, Electronics, Maker Shed Store, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
November 7, 2008
New book at Maker Faire: The Best of instructables Volume I
While I was at Maker Faire, I picked up a new book from the Maker Shed called The Best of Instructables Volume I. It's a really cool 300+ page book that's filled with over 120 great projects. One of my favorite quotes from the book was written by Eric Wilhelm of instructables "Making things by hand is cool again. You can be a creator, not just a consumer." Awesome!
Instructables.com has become one of the most popular magnets for makers and DIY enthusiasts of all stripes. Now, with more than 10,000 projects to choose from, the Instructables staff, editors of MAKE: Magazine, and the Instructables community itself have put together a collection of technology how-to's from the site. The Best of Instructables Volume 1 includes plenty of clear, full-color photographs, complete step-by-step instructions, and tips, tricks, and new build techniques you won't find anywhere else. Over 300 pages!
There are a couple of PDF sample chapters online.
I really like the Magnetic Refrigerator Lights [PDF] and the DIY Vacuum Former [PDF].
Another really popular project is the screen-printing tutorial. [PDF]
You can pick up a copy in the Maker Shed, it's a really great read!
Posted by Marc de Vinck |
Nov 7, 2008 03:00 AM
Maker Shed Store, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
October 13, 2008
The "$50 and Up Underground House Book"
$50 and Up Underground House Book – Underground Housing and Shelter via Cool Tools (review).
The $50 & Up Underground House Book teaches how to build the lowest cost, most sunshine-filled, best ventilated and driest underground houses of all. It teaches how to incorporate greenhouses, root cellars and fallout shelters into an underground home. It covers both hillside and flat land design, and explains how to solve drainage problems with dependable gravity rather then expensive, failure-prone building materials. It also details ways to pass or otherwise deal with the building codes.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 13, 2008 08:00 AM
Reviews, Toolbox |
Permalink
| Comments (2)
| Email Entry
August 6, 2008
Review - The VCO Chip Cookbook
If you're interested in building an analog synthesizer then the VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) circuit is the best place to start. Oscillators form the core of the instrument, generating basic waveforms which are then shaped and shifted by accompanying components like LFOs, VCAs, and filters and then delivered to our ears as tasty electronic audio candy.
I recently picked up a copy of synth-designer Thomas Henry's VCO Chip cookbook from SMS Electronics. The 100+ page book covers three chips - the 566, 8038, and XR-2206 function generator. The cookbook covers several recipes for attaining sine, triangle, and square waves from each chip with difficulties ranging from beginner-friendly to advanced-worthy. As a bonus, instructions for some unusual wave-shapers (rampoid, anyone?) and basic test devices are drawn out as well. Most of the plans included are intended for use with a +/-15V power supply. It's also worth mentioning that the 566 and 8038 IC's are no longer manufactured but can be purchased via ebay, and several rare/surplus electronics dealers.
I sat down and assembled one of the XR circuits on a breadboard in about an hour. Once I had things powered up and oscillating, I removed the pitch control potentiometer and replaced it with a couple force-sensing resistors which I'd been waiting to put to good use. You can see the scratchtastic results below -
It's refreshing to have a nice spiral bound manual at the workbench instead of referring to the multitude of webpages and printouts I'd begrudgingly grown used to. I found Henry's explanations and schematics easy to follow and I plan on using that XR-2206 circuit for a few upcoming projects.
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Aug 6, 2008 01:00 PM
Electronics, Music, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
July 31, 2008
Femisapien robot review..
Robotsrule has a giant review of the new Femisapien robot, for $99 it's look worth it for the parts, sensors and learning interface alone...
For me the posing interface is the most powerful and fun method of playing with Femisapien. As you can see in the accompanying video review, you can create a Femisapien dance or skit in literally seconds. You put her in Learning Mode and you simply move her at one of two different speeds, slow or fast. That's it. After each movement she will beep at you to tell you she's memorized the movement. Then just adding keep movements until you're done, up to 80 movements total. To finish the sequence just wait 4 seconds or tilt her head out of Learning mode. Any time you want to see the sequence just wave your hand in front of her face. It really is that simple. This brings us to her second interface mode, the Hand Gesture interface.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 31, 2008 09:00 AM
Reviews, Robotics |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
June 10, 2008
The Chemical History of a Candle
The latest Citzien Scientist has a great review of TThe Chemical History of a Candle Michael Faraday. Mike writes...
Michael Faraday, a man with little formal education, is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time. He is also considered the father of electrical engineering. During the Christmas holidays of 1860 and 1861, Faraday presented a series of six lectures before a Juvenile Auditory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In addition to these six lectures, this book includes an additional lecture on the element platinum.Faraday was an amazing individual who overcame many setbacks with determination and perseverance. When he was an apprenticed book binder, Faraday attended a series of lectures given by Sir Humphrey Davy and took detailed notes. He later transcribed the lectures into a note book and presented it to Sir Humphrey, who offered Faraday a job.
In addition to my admiration of the great Michael Faraday, SAS’s own Forrest M. Mims III remarked that he considered Michael Faraday “a great inspiration and personal hero.” Albert Einstein stated that he considered Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk Maxwell as three of the most influential people in the history of science. This book was recommended to me by 2002 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Dr. John B. Fenn, who is also a long standing member of the Michael Faraday fan club.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 10, 2008 08:00 AM
Reviews, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (2)
| Email Entry
April 28, 2008
MAKE Interview: DIY video mixers and more with Karl Klomp
"OSD-glitcher", (Klomp, 2006, 2007)
Interview/Article by Jonah Brucker-Cohen
In the multifarious world of circuit bending outdated audio and video sampling devices, there is a strong community of artists and makers who are pushing the envelope on their designs with each new incarnation of their work. One of these impresarios is Dutch artist and maker, Karl Klomp. Klomp's work includes modded video samplers and intricately bent video descramblers and sync generators that change their visual output based on audio feeds and are completely customizable through many switches, knobs, and other sensor inputs. Make recently caught up with Klomp to discuss his approach to building these devices and to discover exactly how many custom knobs are necessary to generate the optimal bent performance.
More images and full Interview at the link below.
Read full storyPosted by Jonah Brucker-Cohen |
Apr 28, 2008 07:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Electronics, Music, Remake, Reviews, The Maker File |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
April 8, 2008
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
Core77 has a review up of Richard Sennett's book "The Craftsman," which
is a conglomerate of case studies that explore the relationship of hand to mind, craftsmanship to Enlightenment. Herein, Sennett, a renown London-based sociologist with a zest for the human experience, argues that the most basic, fundamental ability we humans share is that of craft. When properly trained, this process functions as muscle memory, literally training the mind while working the hand. If its up to Sennett, all those hours spent learning how to throw clay pots, plane wood, and mix plaster for some toy-design/coffee-maker/mobile-phone project actually might just make you, the designer-cum-craftsman, a more enlightened person. From the computer screen to the workshop table, it's the stuff we've known for years: think, make, share, and do it again. It's what we wake up to do every morning, and what we dream about at night.
I know what's on my summer reading list...
Posted by Becky Stern |
Apr 8, 2008 07:00 PM
Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
March 31, 2008
Five hundred and seven mechanical movements
Dugg writes in -
One reader of The Automata / Automaton Blog wrote to me with an interesting question. "I'm looking for a simple mechanism to convert rotational motion to reciprocal motion along the SAME axis as the rotation, not perpendicular."I decided to investigate potential solutions in one of my favorite books on mechanisms, Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements: Embracing All Those Which Are Most Important in Dynamics, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines... (Astragal Press, 1995).
Answers and more here. Looks like a great book!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Mar 31, 2008 07:00 AM
Retro, Reviews, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Email Entry
February 12, 2008
The Original Boys Handy Book
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Timmy writes -
First published in 1882 this timeless bestseller by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America is chock-full of cool projects, games and crafts for every season of the year.The Original Boys Handy Book - Link.Filled with black & white illustrations and schematics, this guide for American boys, is organized by season and is full of instructions, suggestions and advice about kites, fishing, knots, telescopes, tents, soap bubbles, animals, snowball warfare, puppets, kaleidoscopes, whirligigs, costumes, decoys--even fireworks!! The emphasis is on building things yourself, and to that end it is an extremely valuable handbook for our increasingly passive society.
*found it at barnes and noble in the clearance / limited copies section, picked it up for $9 well worth it if you ask me :)*
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 12, 2008 03:30 AM
Retro, Reviews, Toolbox |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Email Entry
February 11, 2008
Eyeclops: Super magnifying camera
One of my favorite makers has a review of the Eyeclops, a super magnifying camera @ the Cockeyed Science Club. This looks like a great tool for makers for all sorts of things ... Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 11, 2008 07:00 AM
Imaging, Reviews, Toys and Games |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
January 20, 2008
New feature - What's new in electronics catalogs - Jameco SAFETY & SECURITY!
I think it's time for a new feature here on MAKE - our review (and yours) on electronics catalogs - as makers we all get dozens of catalogs from Jameco, Mouser, Digikey and more - so let's all comment on these "bibles" that fill our shelves and toilet tanks. We get our parts from these, we thumb through them - but does anyone actually pay attention to what they're trying to tell us? Who knows - here's the first one is the one that arrived in my mailbox today - Jameco!
The Jameco 281 - February 2008 edition (wow, 280 of these before this!). The theme is safety, there's a giant safe on the cover - safes = security folks. If you're going to order from Jameco you can choose savings or security (it's a choice of both). There are cheaper parts from no-name folks, that might be ok for a hobby project but when you're doing something else you might want to consider some name brand options, more so if you're company doesn't put up with generic brands and need some type of certifications/standards. It's like going to the pharmacy, the generics are probably ok - but who are you going to sue if things go wrong? Oh, the catalog weighs in at a nice 208 pages (zoomable photos here).
Inside the cover there is a team of tiny people that are working safely on a circuit board. The one in the middle is about to do something with that capacitor while the other is telling him what to do, the other guy is just hanging out in his yellow hat, likely a contractor. Jameco is against asterisks, they don't have them and the darts speak for themselves I think. The safe is back, they're not going to let you forget about security just yet.
Overall I think this is what I expect and want from an electronics catalog, some stock photos that end up being charming more than anything else along with some bold campaigns against symbols that usually mean bad things (the asterisk, we hate them!). Good work Jameco.
Ok, makers your turn - if you got this catalog post your comments up. Next week will likely be Mouser or Digikey. If you want to do a review hit us up on email.
More:
Jameco (10x of what's in the catalog online) - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 20, 2008 03:00 AM
Electronics, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (14)
| Email Entry
Eye-Fi - Wireless SD card, might be good for Makers who use Flickr, do projects in their shops and more...
I picked up an Eye-Fi wireless SD card, it's a card with 2GB of storage and it can automatically upload your photos as you take them to your computer and/or services like Flickr. I take a lot of photos in the workshop here of electronics, projects and things for site so I figured this might be worth the $100 price. It usually takes me 10 minutes or so to take an SD card out, transfer photos and then up to 15 minutes or so to upload most of them to Flickr or just keep them on my machine. The packaging is fun, you pul a tab and box slides open, the Wi-Fi SD card has the installation software on it and in less than 5 minutes it was set up and uploading to Flickr and my computer. The software (on my Mac) talks to the card and their web site for configuring it all. I'd like to see more advanced controls for Flickr like titles, tags and disabling privacy settings - but that's all software and web updates so maybe this review will move that along. I'd like to give it an email address so I could send to people, or to blog services like Tumblr.
One of the reasons the Eye-Fi is appealing to is that in the past I've used Kodak's Wi-Fi camera as well as Nikon's but I felt trapped by the way they force you to use their services. Things have changed a bit lately but one of the things I didn't like at the time was that camera manufacturers like to force you to use their weird photo service. The Kodak Wi-Fi camera was fun but it didn't send the photos to Flickr, I needed to do a silly workaround-hack. I think with something like the Eye-Fi you'll always have more choices and as you retire out a camera the Wi-Fi ability is card based, not camera based.
This is a quick 1 hour review, I'll post more as I play around with it. Oh, at Macworld Eye-Fi announced that later this month there will be an update so it works directly with iPhoto. I don't use iPhoto but lots of people do so I'm curious how much better it will be. There are already 40,000+ photos tagged with "Eye-Fi" on Flickr now, they're mostly babies but I suppose worth checking out - Link.
More:
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jan 20, 2008 12:08 AM
Gadgets, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (7)
| Email Entry
December 21, 2007
OLPC vs Kindle
Mike @ Radar has a good review comparing the OLPC and Amazon's Kindle... different devices, but Mike as you'd expect (O'Reilly/Safari) is looking at these for reading books...
Both the Kindle and OLPC can browse the Web. However, the Kindle was designed to browse Amazon's library of content to purchase. The OLPC has a Firefox browser and it truly operates like it was meant to browse. The Kindle uses Whispernet from Amazon, which is quite impressive in its coverage. It is not painfully slow either. I have read GMail with the Kindle and checked basketball scores on NBA.com. I did a quick bit of math. If you are paying roughly $49 a month for an internet service provider, you could buy a Kindle and use Whispernet for free. After about eight months, your Kindle would have paid for itself in the savings you were shelling out for an ISP. I am not going to do this myself, but it is possible for low-volume browsing and internet useage. I am hoping the browser delivered in the Experimental section of the Kindle improves with time. I believe Amazon has a good opportunity to make this a very compelling device, even more than it already is. I do like the reading quality of the Kindle. The reading experience is excellent if you keep your thumbs off the sides. I have well-trained/controlled thumbs now. I have a Sony Reader as well and, I am sorry to say, that it just does not compete well with the Kindle's intuitiveness and readability.- OLPC and the Kindle - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 21, 2007 09:00 AM
Gadgets, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (5)
| Email Entry
December 19, 2007
Home Endoscope review - Digital pen camera
Dan writes -
An endoscope is a thin viewing device, suitable for being poked into places where the human eye cannot, and possibly should not, otherwise see. Since it's likely to be dark... in there, endoscopes usually have some sort of illumination device built in. The more sophisticated kinds of endoscope shoot light out of the same lens the user looks through. The common otoscope, for peering into ears, is the simplest example of that idea.Home Endoscope review - Digital pen camera - [via] Link.Endoscopes are useful for all sorts of things, but they're also usually rather expensive. Endoscopes that incorporate a camera so you can hook them up to a TV or computer are, generally speaking, more expensive again.
And then, there's this one.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 19, 2007 03:00 PM
Gadgets, Imaging, Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (6)
| Email Entry
December 3, 2007
SketchUp book!
PC World has a review of a new SketchUp book, SketchUp is a free and popular 3D tool for designing objects, buildings and more... Phil writes -
Remember when your high school English teacher explained that every word in the sentences you write needs to carry some meaning? While the rest of us missed that point, Aidan Chopra was paying attention. Google Sketchup for Dummies is a tightly written, fun to read book that gives a lot of byte for your buck. Aidan Chopra works at Google as the product evangelist for Google SketchUp and he's the editor of the monthly SketchUpdate email newsletter. He knows SketchUp inside and out and uses plain English to show you the ropes.- Community Voices Book Review - Google SketchUp for Dummies - [via] Link.Google SketchUp is a 3D drawing program that defies easy description. It's fun, playful and at the same time very powerful.
Related:
SketchUp drawings of midibox-based MIDI controller designs - Link.
Workbench plans - made with Sketchup - Link.
Hammock made with Sketchup... - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 3, 2007 03:00 AM
Reviews |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
| Email Entry
The online premiere of Make: television is January 3rd 2009, visit makezine.tv or iTunes to see the entire first episode! The broadcast premiere will follow shortly after depending on when your local Public Television station airs it.
Happy New Year from MAKE!
MAKE's 2009 New Year's message.What we're making in 2009.
MAKE's RSS feed is here.
Add MAKE to iGoogle - GoogleGoogle.
How to add MAKE to your RSS reader - Real simple.
Add MAKE on Twitter.
MAKE's fan page on Facebook.
Add MAKE on FriendFeed
Why advertise on MAKE?
Read what folks are saying about us!
Click here to advertise on MAKE!
Makezine authors!
Senior Editor
Tel: 707-827-7311
Twitter / AIM
Gareth Branwyn
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Chris Connors
Collin Cunningham
Marc de Vinck
Mike Dixon
Peter Horvath(intern)
Kip Kay
Luke Iseman
John Park
Patti Schiendelman
Becky Stern
Jason Striegel
Current Podcast
Maker Profile - Bicycle Rodeo
Introducing Cyclecide, an inventive band of Bay Area performance artists who make creations out of materials from the junkyard. These Makers create everything from amusement park rides to outrageous bicycle contraptions to found-object sculpture. Plus, we take a historical...
More...
