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    Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens: Make Stuff For Fun
    Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens: Make Stuff For Fun
    Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens: Make Stuff For Fun
    Ebook177 pages1 hour

    Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens: Make Stuff For Fun

    By Alan Detwiler

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    About this ebook

    Homemade Devices is written particularly for the adolescent or young adult who enjoys making interesting mechanical devices and gadgets. Over 40 projects are described using clear wording. Diagrams are included to assist in ease of understanding. Most of the projects take between 15 minutes and 2 hours to complete. A high priority is given to being able to complete each project without special tools and materials. Most casual do-it-yourselfers will have the needed items around the house and/or garage. The cost of each project is low. There are no kits to buy. Only low cost and no cost materials are needed. Most items are made from small pieces of wooden boards, coat hanger wire, paper, used containers, and discarded household items. A few projects require low cost items found in hardware stores. Most projects require one or two common tools such as a scissors, hacksaw, screwdriver, pliers, knife, file or drill.

    Homemade Devices deals mostly with items that are mechanically interesting, clever or useful. Some are best described as toys or playthings. Others are simple mechanical curiosities. Some are appealing because of their shape, form or structure.

    Homemade Devices is for the tinkerer who enjoys improvised devices. It is for anyone who wants to develop ingenuity to use the tools and materials that happen to be available. Homemade Devices is a way to enjoy building structural and mechanical devices.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlan Detwiler
    Release dateFeb 11, 2012
    ISBN9781465947772
    Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens: Make Stuff For Fun
    Author

    Alan Detwiler

    Alan Detwiler grew up on a small farm. That background gave him some special insights and perspectives. The weather and the natural world are very much a part of living on a farm. On a farm, everyday observations demonstrate how plants and animals grow and develop and how weather and climate interact with living things. Alan and anyone growing up a farm knows that our food supply is very much dependant on how much it rains, when it rains, and how warm or cold it is. Any drastic change in climate and weather patterns will affect our food supply. Genetics and disease are topics of special concern to anyone living on a farm. Farm crops and farm animals are not the plants and animals of the wild. They have been genetically altered by human intervention. Farmers are especially aware of those differences and how genetics produce those differences. Farm animals are in constant threat of disease. It is not uncommon for farmers to loose substantial numbers of their animals to disease. People and the plants and animals we use for food are at risk. Farm living, plus an interest in science gave Alan the background for writing science fiction changes coming in the near future. Potential threats are very serious and are perhaps likely to drastically affect our lives. The consequences could be unpleasant, but why react with anxiety? Wouldn't a better reaction be to take action to be prepared and feel good that you have done so? The main themes in his writing are maximizing resilience through self sufficiency,self reliance, and how people prepare for and react to the changes of the upcoming decades. Alan writes to explore ideas and to discover ways to more enjoy life. He uses the ideas of others and adds what his own experiences and observations can contribute. Imagination adds new ideas for appreciating all that is good. His hope is that the readers of his books will do the same.

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      Book preview

      Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens - Alan Detwiler

      Homemade Devices For Inventive Teens -

      Make Stuff For Fun

      By Alan Detwiler

      Smashwords addition

      Copyright 2012 Alan Detwiler

      License Notes: This ebook is licensed for use by one person and that person's immediate family. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for encouraging the hard work of ebook authors

      CONTENTS

      article title

      prolog  -- build some wonders

      large paper clips  -- hold many sheets of paper

      CD holder -- storage for CDs in jewel cases

      macrame hanger -- for hanging a flower pot

      crayon batik -- draw on cloth with a crayon

      bootjack -- used to help remove your boots

      duct tape wallet -- a wallet made from duct tape

      whirligig -- easy, well working whirligig

      paper bowl -- decorative bowl from paper strips

      boot puzzle -- a puzzle made from paper

      snap trick -- a puzzle made from wood

      fractal folds -- from cut & folded paper, cool

      string climber -- a simple mechanical wonder

      book safe -- a hiding place in a book

      door sign -- a message on your room door

      collage -- make a display of many pictures

      smoke rings -- a few ways to make smoke rings

      paper ball -- 3 paper disks cleverly put together

      water viewer -- aids seeing what's under water

      bookcover -- from a paper grocery bag

      theme box -- decorative/functional paper box

      paper cube -- cleverly made paper cube

      juggling sticks -- sticks made for juggling

      tube dulcimer -- music from metal tubes

      geodesic structure -- from rolls of paper

      string sphere -- string made rigid with glue

      cable ride -- a pulley that rolls on a cable

      dollar ring -- paper money folded into a ring

      cubby box -- multi section display box

      catamaran -- model boat from soda bottles

      pinwheel -- for low speed air currents

      cook something -- enjoy making and eating it

      stilts -- walking tall is fun

      scrapbook -- reminders of interesting events

      rope machine -- make your own rope

      model burrow -- use it as a pencil holder

      drawing board -- swings to draw a patterns

      juggling pins -- you can make them from junk

      Jacob's ladder -- it's peculiar somehow

      disk box -- a box made from computer disks

      bottle rocket -- pump it up and up it goes

      potato gun -- shoots plugs of raw potatoes

      simplest motor -- battery, wire and a magnet

      epilog -- what's good about making stuff

      Prolog

      In times past it was often necessary to use whatever materials that were at hand to fashion a contrivance that would fulfill a practical need. A typical home was often built by the occupants and contained many homemade items. Those valued items must have been a source of pride and served as reminders of the ingenuity of the human mind. The necessity to make mechanical things has been taken away by the easy availability of manufactured goods. But the opportunity to exercise and demonstrate our mechanical ingenuity is as available as ever. When a purely leisure pursuit is your desire, have some fun discovering what your mind can do with the tools and materials you have. Perhaps you will make something that has a special meaning to you, something that stirs a valued part of yourself and makes a statement about the wonders of your mind and the wonders of the world and thereby strengthens your hope that ever greater wonders will be produced by human spirit and ingenuity.

      back to CONTENTS

      large paper clips

      These large paper clips can be used to keep a bundle of papers together. Begin by cutting off the hook and twisted part of a wire clothes hanger. To cut the wire use a wire cutter, a hacksaw or hold the wire with a pair of pliers and bend the wire back and forth at one point on the wire. If each bend is made as sharply as possible the wire will break after maybe 5 or 6 bends. Straighten out the wire with the pliers or a hammer. For the trombone clip make the necessary bends by holding the wire against a cylinder shaped object such as a pie roller or tin can. Then bend the wire against the cylinder. A very even curve can be made that way. The butterfly clip bends can be made using a smaller diameter cylinder such as a piece of old broom handle. Make the size of the clips any size you like but 5 to 7 inches works well. Two more possible designs are shown below.

      back to CONTENTS

      CD holder

      If you happen to have a piece of a wood board about 5 1/2 inches wide, at least 1 foot long and between 3/4 and 1 1/2 inches thick then you can use it to make a CD holder. You'll need maybe 10 wire clothes hangers, a drill and a drill bit just a little narrower than the wire.

      Draw a pencil line one inch in from the board's edge. Draw another such line one inch in from the other edge. Put a mark every 1/2 inch along both lines.

      Drill a hole 1/2 inch deep at each mark.

      Cut and straighten the clothes hangers as necessary to produce enough 11 1/2 inch pieces so there is one wire piece for each pair of holes.

      Use a pair of pliers to bend each piece into a U shape as shown.

      The horizontal section of each shape

      should be 3 1/2 inches. The vertical parts should be 4 inches.

      Push the wire ends into the drilled holes. If the fit is very tight grip the wire firmly about 1/2 inch from its end. Tap on the pliers with a hammer. If you prefer, space the holes one inch apart so only half as many holes and wire pieces are necessary. Then 2 DC cases can be kept between each guide.

      back to CONTENTS

      macrame hanger

      Four pieces of rope each 6 feet long can be used to make a hanger for a 8 inch in diameter flower pot. For larger or smaller pots use longer or shorter lengths of rope. Put the pieces of rope together so that the ends of each rope are even with each other at the ends of the bundle. Fold the bundle in half so that all the ends are together. Tie a overhand knot a couple of inches from the end of the bundle that has no rope ends. Think of the simplest knot that you know and that will be the overhand knot.

      A simple overhand knot and a bundle of ropes tied at the center:

      Below: The next step.

      Above: Think of the rope ends

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