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Make Magazine Celebrates World Of Do-It-Yourself

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By SETH SUTEL, The Associated Press

Published: February 25, 2008

NEW YORK - What do you do when you've bolted a computer onto a remote-controlled car and hooked it up with Internet access, a wireless router and a camera, but you don't have anyone to show it off to?

Just ask Mike Davis. He brought his mobile Internet access point to a meeting with other readers of Make magazine, a how-to publication for people who just love to tinker with stuff.

The 28-year-old systems engineer from Brooklyn, N.Y., found people who built homemade LCD displays, a clock that makes you solve a math problem before setting the alarm and a class in mastering pipe mechanics - something with many uses beyond just making a potato cannon.

Make magazine, not yet 3 years old, is leading a new wave of interest in build-it-yourself projects. Even as technology comes to us in packages that are ever harder to take apart and tinker with, Make harkens back to a time when it was OK to build your own radio, get under the hood of your car and open up electronic devices like record players just to see how they worked. Its Web site sells hooded sweat shirts emblazoned with the credo: "If You Can't Open It, You Don't Own It."

People seem to be catching on. In summer 2005, not long after Make's first issue came out, an MIT-educated engineer named Eric Wilhelm launched a Web site called Instructables .com with how-to instructions for all kinds of projects, while a meet-up group called Dorkbot has been springing up in cities across the country to showcase artistic, musical and just plain quizzical inventions with one thing in common - using electricity.

Make is about to gain an even bigger national audience. Public television stations are set to air a Make-themed show early next year, and on May 3-4 the magazine is hosting its third Maker Faire, a contraptions bonanza that drew 40,000 people last year, double the amount of its first year.

Richard Hudson, executive producer of science programming at TPT/Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., which is making the show, says he hopes "Make: TV" will do for build-it-yourself projects what Julia Child did for cooking and "This Old House" did for home improvement. The show is being sponsored by Geek Squad, the technology services business owned by Best Buy Co.

"The real magic of the magazine is giving you permission and the instructions to take control of technology, to do what you want with it," Hudson said. "In the world of making, you get to turn technology to your will, and that's a breakthrough."

The magazine, part of the technical publishing company O'Reilly Media Inc. in Sebastopol, Calif., traces its origins to 2003. Dale Dougherty, a longtime editor of technical manuals, suggested "a Martha Stewart for geeks" to CEO Tim O'Reilly. Its paid circulation is now 100,000, and back issues sell briskly at makezine.com. Dougherty says the Make franchise is close to being profitable.

Make isn't about products per se, but recipes for making stuff. Some projects are practical, such as a battery charger for an MP3 player, affectionately called a "Minty Boost" after the tin of Altoids mints that is adapted to hold a pair of AA batteries (not included). Other projects are more involved, such as using a length of wood and a cigar box to build an electric guitar.

Make has built cred among the geek elite, thanks partly to editor in chief Mark Frauenfelder, co-founder of the über-hip Web site BoingBoing. The site, a compendium of wacky finds from the worlds of technology and pop culture, recently posted a photo that featured a "giant sculpture of a woman made from peaches."

Google, another bastion of tech coolness, has been a sponsor of Maker Faire and sent representatives there to promote a 3-D modeling and design program called SketchUp, which turned out to be very popular among readers of Make.

"We felt like we were among friends," said John Bacus, product manager for SketchUp.

Make also goes on field trips to explore what like-minded contraption creators are doing. Dougherty and contributing editor Bill Gurstelle, a former engineer for AT&T, have visited the Punkin Chunkin World Championships in Delaware, a contest for makers of huge devices designed to hurl pumpkins great distances.

Gurstelle is no slouch in that department. He has authored a number of books, including "Backyard Ballistics" and "Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior's Guide to Building Projectile Shooters."

Gurstelle, who describes what he does as "PG-13 science projects," compares Make to what Popular Science magazine was 25 years ago, full of projects made for people "who like to take control of the gadgets and gizmos around them."

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