Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

Put a hacker in a room with a Furby for a weekend and you'll hear a conversation that's fairly one-sided in its originality. Toss in an 802.11b network card, a soldering iron, wire cutters, a logic probe, and a few other carefully selected tools and materials and you'll have potential. Add a copy of Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks and by the end of the weekend that Furby will be saying things you never imagined. From building an Internet toaster to creating a cubicle intrusion detection system, Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks offers an array of inventive, customized electronics projects for the geek who can't help looking at a gadget and wondering how it might be "upgraded." Beginning with basic hacks, tools, and techniques for those who may not have a background in electronics, the book covers the tools of the hardware hacking trade and basic soldering techniques, then moves into more advanced hacking projects. Clear step-by-step instructions allow even those with no formal electronics- or hardware-engineering skills to hack real hardware in very clever ways. Hacks in the book are rated on a scale of difficulty, cost, and duration. Projects range from those that are truly useful to some things you may have never thought to do, but which are really cool, such as:

• Building your own arcade game
• Making radio-controlled cars play laser tag
• Building an automobile periscope
• Hacking an 802.11b antenna
• Building a building size display

Perhaps you're an electronics hobbyist who likes to learn by doing. Maybe you hack software and want to see how the other half lives. Or, maybe you've never hacked at all, but you'd like to get started quickly with some projects that do something interesting from the start. If you're any of these, then Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks will indulge your inner mad scientist. Using the projects in this book as a jumping point for other new and clever hacks, it won't be long before you're looking around, asking, "I wonder what I can improve next?"

Scott Fullam has been hacking hardware since he was 10 years old with his first RadioShack 100-in-1 electronic kit. He built an "intruder" alarm to keep his sister out of his room. Scott attended MIT earning Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. While an undergraduate he built a "shower detection" system so that he could see if the community shower was in use. After graduating from MIT Scott designed children's toys and built close to 50 prototypes in 2 years. He then went to work at Apple Computer in the Advanced Technology Group designing digital still cameras. In 1995, Fullam co-founded PocketScience, which develops revolutionary mobile e-mail communications products and services. As the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Fullam personally developed all of the algorithms for the company's products. Scott now works as an independent consultant assisting consumer electronic companies design high quality products. Never satisfied with how the consumer electronics products he owns work, he often takes them apart and enhances their capabilities.