Ask an Engineer References @ equals zero by Charles Guan.

Essentially it was aiming to be a quick highlight of what  someone could do in the realm of mechanical projects, since the usual target of the show is very much EEs and software folks. I gave a rundown of some of the projects (the entire build histories of which are to the left in the sidebar) and answered a few questions about EV technology. One thing that cropped up was where to start reading or joining if you want to build mechanical things, and I really couldn’t provide a good answer on the show.

I still can’t think of one – unlike the Ardusphere, there’s not really any well known big names that ‘unify’ the mechanical hobbies, such as what Sparkfun and Adafruit might do for the modern EE hobbyist, since the scope of these is so much larger than open-source electronics. You’d generally have to break it down further, like ‘modified electric bikes’, or ‘battlebots’ or something, which is why I suggested with only a bit of irony for people to google search the thing they want to build. For instance, there’s pretty much a community for every make and model of car in existence.

But here’s a classic-me onslaught of links which should help at least a few people get hooked and started…

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