The Equipping Your Maker Space Podcast

Improbable Insights

It's easier than ever to become a maker. In today's commoditized world, building something unique just for yourself has become a way to express yourself. Whether it's a unique clock, your own personal weather station, the right costume for the next convention season, making your own offers greater satisfaction than buying. But how do you get started? My regular co-hosts Eric Klein and David Bryant are veteran makers in their own right. Their advice and insight into getting started, finding the right gear, sources for learning, and tools should get you going. Eric and David mention some sources for learning, so I've added some links: Instructables -- Tutorials from people who make stuff. Since the site is user-driven, the quality of the tutorials vary, but you can find some real gems. Adafruit -- Adafruit will happily sell you stuff to get you going, but they also offer a great set of tutorials. Make Magazine, one of the oldest publications catering to the maker movement. Other Resources: Sparkfun Starter Kit, which Dave mentions as a way to get started with Arduino. Boldport Club: a subscription service for DIY electronics projects. Really Useful Boxes, where Dave buys his storage boxes. Tools & Fun I went to see the Wonder Woman movie and it's fabulous. I'm going to see it again in the theaters. You should, too. I loved the way the story handled her development arc. My older daughter, Elizabeth, brought her Mavic Pro drone with her on a recent visit. We flew it quite a bit, and I was so impressed I ordered one. Here's one video Elizabeth shot of birds nesting on a small island near Mountain View. https://vimeo.com/220897147 My Edifier powered bookshelf speakers arrived -- and they do sound sweet. I've also discovered a new board game genre: the Escape Room tabletop game. Eric also liked Wonder Woman, though not quite as much as I did. But we both encouraged David to go see it stat. Eric's also digging Luke Cage but agrees the first half is better than the second half. He's also been equipping his home (yes, his home) with industrial-strength shelving from companies like Uline and Global Industrial. And Eric's been on an in-ear monitor (IEM) kick recently and talks about what he's discovered. David took a leftover subwoofer from a discarded home theater system, picked up an inexpensive 2.1 digital amplifier, and built himself a powered subwoofer for making the big booms in Ghost Recon Wildlands even bigger sounding. He's still enjoying AMC's Into the Badlands as well. He also talks about other maker stuff he's discovered recently. And finally, a little E3 news. XCOM2 gets an expansion, which looks pretty sweet, adding new factions and expanding the strategic layer. Bioware announced a new multiplayer co-operative shooter called Anthem in the same vein as The Division and Destiny. It looks very Mass Effect-like, but takes place in a different universe. And Microsoft announces the Xbox One X, a beefier Xbox the company claims will usher in 4K gaming for consoles. We'll close with a little gameplay trailer for Anthem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHwsDN57Ts0