fashioning technology: a diy intro to smart crafting - syuzi pakhchyan
I got Fashioning Technology at dConstruct, from the nice, interested guy at the O'Reilly stall - who by the way told me that they are planning a Maker Faire in the UK, yay!
I am currently the tiniest bit obsessed with the whole Maker movement, and crafting with electronics, and the Lilypad Arduino, so this book was one I had been looking forward to very much. And I wish I had had it about nine months ago: it's an excellent introduction to working with circuits and Ohm's law and resistors and all that, with good tutorials on working with a multimeter and a soldering iron. Stuff that I found quite hard to figure out on my own (though a remedial class by my father helped a lot).
I was a bit disappointed that the book didn't feature any projects with the Lilypad, and put so much emphasis on projects with screen printing and other techniques that I think would be better learned from a book on those subjects on their own, but still: a useful, inspiring book. Highly recommended if you want to get into this strange but wonderful field. (and if you do, contact me, so we can start our own little sect of crafty hobbyists who have small, BarCampy get-togethers!)
15-09-2008
