The Best Of MAKE

The Best of Make

Rather than being a 370 page book one would read cover-to-cover, this is a book to scan chapter after chapter, project after project. As the title suggests, this is a compilation of home buildable technological projects… some electronic, some mechanical, some whimsical… but all intriguing.

There is a lot here. How to build everything from an on-vacation cat feeder (out of parts from a VCR and a meat grinder) that automatically doles out cat food on schedule… to making an “gun-operated” alarm clock that requires you to be enough awake to shoot it with a video game gun to turn off the alarm. From rockets made from 2 liter soda bottles… to a basic “Sterling” engine made from tin cans and copper pipe. From a cigar box guitar… to a model rocket mounted digital camcorder… to a pinhole panoramic camera. In fact, there is an entire section covering digital imaging projects.

This tome even includes directions for building your own model-building workbench.

Each project includes a required parts list and a recommended tools list that makes pre-build preparation organized and simple. Many of the projects would be wonderful for child or teen groups interested in engineering of any kind (are you listening Boy & Girl Scouts?).

Even if you don’t end up building any of the 75 included projects… just reading about many of them will get your noodle contemplating related projects of your own.

Rated: **** out of 5