As any fanboy will tell you, there are graphic novels about everything. The Bible. Crime fighters that dress like bats. Mosquito-abating teenagers.
Now, for the fanboy who loves manufacturing, comes “Tinkerers: An Original Tale of the Near Future” by David Brin. Brin, the prolific author of such books as “Startide Rising,” “The Life Eaters” and “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?” has taken on the manufacturing demise in America in a 24-page tome.
The book begins: “Imagine a nation that has lost its ability and desire to make things….” Tinkerers is set in 2024, a town where high school graduates go into service jobs and buy brand names from overseas. Our hero, who looks a little like Fabio, but with shorter hair, is one of the few handy folks left in town.When disaster strikes, he must use his skills to save lives.
Make a robot friend with Adafruit’s CRICKIT – A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It’s an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express, FEATHER and other platforms to make and program robots with CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. Start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends your boards so you can still use all the goodies on the microcontroller, now you have a robotics playground as well.
