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The Big Book of Hacks: 264 Amazing DIY Tech Projects Paperback – October 23, 2012

by Doug Cantor (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 182 ratings
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Fire up your soldering iron, charge up that drill, and get ready to hack! From a tiny theremin to a watermelon keg, from an automatic cat feeder to a glowing mousepad, the ingenious and hilarious projects in The Big Book of Hacks are perfect for aspiring makers. And it's all brought to you by the DIY masters at Popular Science magazine.

Four comprehensive chapters help you create megafun games and toys for the amusement of all:

GEEK TOYS Be the life of any party with rad gaming hacks, amazing pyrotechnics, quirky DIY robots, "wow"-inducing projectiles, and lots of ways to make beer even better.

HOME IMPROVEMENTS Pimp out your pad with a laser-security system, an improvised sous-vide cooker, and a life-size cardboard display of anyone you want.

GADGET UPGRADES Want to stash a flash drive in an old cassette? Use a DIY stylus on a touchscreen? Improvise a fisheye lens for your camera? With this book, you can.

THINGS THAT GO Give your motorbike a Tron vibe, deck out your car with an action-figure hood ornament, and keep gadgets charged on the go with a solar-powered backpack.
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  1. Part of series
    Popular Science
  2. Print length
    256 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Weldon Owen
  5. Publication date
    October 23, 2012
  6. Dimensions
    7.5 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    9781616283995
  8. ISBN-13
    978-1616283995
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Founded in 1872, Popular Science is the world’s largest science and technology magazine, with 6.7 million readers. Each month, Popular Science reports on the intersection of science and everyday life, delivering a new look at the future now. It’s the ultimate guide to what’s new and what’s next. Popular Science is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the United States, and is published in five languages and nine countries. Its web site, popsci.com, has been readers’ first stop for up-to-the-minute science news since the site first went live in 1999.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1616283998
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Weldon Owen; Original ed. edition (October 23, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781616283995
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1616283995
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.02 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 182 ratings

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Doug Cantor

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
182 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

John R. Mcguire
5.0 out of 5 stars required reading
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2014
Verified Purchase
If you ever wanted to have fun and build/make the cooliest fun stuff this is a must have.It has complete details in easy to read language and also give a rough est. of the costs.MORE FUN then a barrel of monkeys.(and a lot cheaper).When you get it you will start looking for all the stuff you have to at home to see how many projects you can build.Have fun reading and build responsible..
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Olivier Morency
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting for a tinkerer
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
This is an interesting book and I haven't even gotten close to seeing all the projects in it. Those I have seen so far range interesting to weird, to useless and ridiculous. But to be clear, there are a ton of awesome things a tinkerer can build with these instructions. You will need lots of parts and a fairly well developed tool kit, as well as some skill to accomplish most of these projects.
3 people found this helpful
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JustKathi
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for your favorite techie!
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2014
Verified Purchase
I got one of these for my dad for Christmas, and another for my brother in law. They were a big hit! It was tough to get them to put the books DOWN for dinner :-D Lots of interesting ideas and projects. Some simple, some very involved.
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Todd Krein
1.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous, useless, piece of cr*p
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2015
Verified Purchase
Awful. I really wanted to like this book, since I loved the "Big Book of Maker Skills." But it's 95% useless, and the rest isn't worth the price.

There are numerous proof-reading mistakes, even in the forward and the author's introduction. Seriously? Did anyone read it?

There is a useless section on tools and skills. A list of tools with no pictures at all? If I didn't know what they were, how are two gauge sentences going to clear it up for me? Welding is covered, in its "entirety," in nine bullet points on one half of a page. Still without any pictures.

Much of the information is wrong: The description of a transformer is just plain wrong. The picture of a transistor is a four-legged can, unlike any transistor that any DIY person is going to find. Resistors without the color code? Useless.

We then jump right into a bunch of projects about how to drink, including tap-sucks from a vodka-filled watermelon, hiding your beer can, and drinking in the shower. Perfect. My life is complete. The only interesting section was an all-in-one brew-to-tap beer machine, but without any real detail, and no links to find out more.

There are electronics projects w/o schematics, or any operational theory. The "planetarium" tells me to buy an arduino-clone, and lots of optical fiber. What kind of fiber? Where do I get it? How do I handle it? Why this clone? How do I program it? (Oh, the ardunio instructions, all half page of them, are wrong.)

Build an explosive PVC cannon. But don't bother telling folks what "Schedule 40" means, much less what kind of PVC to use.

Avoid this book. There are hundreds of better ones out there.
13 people found this helpful
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Robert Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelllent!!....
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2017
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This book is very easy to follow and provides endless entertainment that is fun and entertaining leaving you with a sense of empowerment and fullfilment!....
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Kyle
3.0 out of 5 stars Slightly Disappointed
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2012
Verified Purchase
I was slightly disappointed when I received my copy of the book today. As a subscriber of Popular Science I quickly found that many of these projects featured in the book had already been featured in the "You built what?" section of the magazine, and as such, were never intended for the reader to build them, but simply to showcase some impressive DIY projects other people had built. These dont have instructions, just a page telling you about it yet they are still numbered. Because of this, the advertised number of 264 DIY projects becomes a lot smaller in reality.

On top of that, the projects that do have instructions, usually contain 1 picture and some brief text about how to make what's in that picture. Overall, I was expecting a book that gave some walkthroughs on how to build these hacks step by step. If that's what you are looking for, just check the internet.

While entertaining,this book is good for giving you ideas of what to do, just not the best at actually telling you how to do it.
41 people found this helpful
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Marty Shaw
4.0 out of 5 stars Fun interesting projects you can do at home
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2013
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This book has 264 do it yourself projects that you can make. This book comes complete with an index and glossary. Some of the projects require special materials to start out with, but some are very simple that even a child could do.
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Brian Mccusker
2.0 out of 5 stars Big Book of Crap
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2013
Verified Purchase
I have been an avid Pop Science/ Pop Mechanics reader for over 2 years and am kind of disappointed for this book. Out of the 264 "Hacks", I would probably only try about 15 of them realistically. A lot of the ideas are not reasonably doable, as in the iron man suit unless you want to spend thousand of dollars and hours. Others are just plain cheap things that you have probably already done or just don't care for them. I mean starting a soldering kit should not be in here or "Butt" joints. These are just in the first few pages. The potato gun is cool but what 5th grader doesn't know how to build one of these. If I had known that it was going to be like this, I wouldn't have bought it. But at least it's $20 on amazon where as Pop Science is $28 plus S&H.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Alex Webber
5.0 out of 5 stars I love to tinker and build
Reviewed in Canada on September 5, 2015
Verified Purchase
I love to tinker and build. This book is amazing, and has given myself, and my friend, many ideas that we are currently working on.
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John Farrelly
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read that has given me a few ideas
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2013
Verified Purchase
If you are a geek or a nerd, this book is great. It gave me a lot of new ideas.
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peter
4.0 out of 5 stars Fun
Reviewed in Canada on August 26, 2013
Verified Purchase
Lot of hacks are beyond my skillset(witch is limited) but nonetheless will have fun this winter
would buy again for sure.
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slyall
1.0 out of 5 stars Promises much delivers useless generalities
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2013
Verified Purchase
Ho Ho "264 amazing diy tech projects" but we offer little about how you can do them. Actually they're not all that amazing either.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless
Reviewed in Canada on November 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
Fewer interesting projects than expected.
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