Tinker it now!

Nick Weldin has been teaching our workshops in the UK since we met him in 2007 and even back then, we wanted to allow him to share his passion and skills with a broader audience. We decided to make a book, and not only that but a book on the internet! No official publishing company, all creative commons images from the community and many many contributors. A true team effort that has been 2 years in the making.

We had the great pleasure of having Crystal Campbell join us for a few months in the autumn of 2008 and help make this a truly visual piece of work and Ben Barker took over this summer to tweak it, help with the editing yet again and with the intricacies of Lulu and now , right on time for Christmas, it’s out!

Tinkering with Arduino is a cousin of Getting Started with Arduino, inspired by the pdf Massimo wrote some years ago, going through the basics of how to use Arduino, but from Nick’s perspective, adding details about how electricity works, how programming works all in a beautiful visual package we are extremely proud of. 90 pages of beautifully illustrated works from Crystal but also with some of the original drawings from Elisa Canducci.

A part of what we’re trying to work out with our work in education since 2007 and hand in hand with the development of the TinkerKit is the language of technology and how it can be opened up to a broader audience and be presented in a friendly way that isn’t off putting. We think that Tinkering with Arduino is a step in that direction along with the great books like Making Things Talk, and other more advanced books like Programming for Interactivity.

If you’re out of ideas for this Christmas, well then give it a go!