As this site is a journal of my journey towards becoming a maker, I figure it’s only fair I leave some waypoints and markers for others starting out on the same journey. To this end, here is a list of resources that I’ve found helpful, which can hopefully provide a starting point for others. I’ll endeavour to keep this list updated with more resources as I discover them.
Books
- The Maker’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi -This is the book which inspired the blog, so it goes without saying that it should be on the list.
- Getting Started in Electronics – This beautifully hand-drawn volume introduces the reader to electronics at a pace which is easy to follow and understand.
- The Tool Book: A Tool-Lover’s Guide to Over 200 Hand Tools – Does what it says on the tin, over 250 pages of images and descriptions of the different types of all the tools you know, and a whole bunch of tools you don’t.
- Woodwork: The Complete Step-by-step Manual – Split into four main sections: tools, techniques, woods, and projects, this book has everything you need to get started in woodworking.
- The Handbuilt Home – Contains the plans for 34 simple, stylish, and budget friendly woodworking projects for every room.
Communities
- Instructables – A community made up of people writing tutorials on how to make things. You can even win prizes by entering their regular competitions.
- Pimoroni Forums – Not limited to supporting their own products, this is a great place to come if you’re in need of some help with a project.
- Adafruit – Much like with Pimoroni, their community forums can provide valuable support for your project, and their Learn portal provides tutorials and guides covering a whole wealth of topics.
- Reddit – You can’t discuss communities without including Reddit – as my social network of course, I spend a lot of time here, being a member of a lot of subreddits, including:
Commerce / Retail
- Amazon – There’s no way I can leave this off the list, I buy around 90% of my stuff from Amazon.
- Pimoroni – In addition to selling the large range of Raspberry Pi accessories they manufacture, including cases, HATs, and their famous Picade, they also stock a range accessories and kits for a number of other systems, including Adafruit Feather, Micro:Bit, and Arduino, as well as general electronics components and tools.
- Cool Components – Another retailer specialising in electronics and components.
YouTube
We’re truly in the golden age of maker videos right now, with no shortage of people putting out content such as tutorials, build videos, and reviews. Other that a few specific favourites at the top, this list is in no particular order, and I encourage you to subscribe to them all.
Magazines
- MAKE – I’ll be honest, I’m not sure this magazine event exists any more, since the company went out of business, but if it does rise again from the ashes, I’ll be sure to resubscribe.
- Hackspace – Published by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, each issue contains articles, tutorials, reviews, and more. If you look closely, you might even find an article or two written by yours truly.
Courses
- The Weekend Woodworker – A premium course by Steve Ramsey designed to teach woodworking in a practical way by showing you how to build 7 different projects for your workshop, home, and garden.
- Instructables Classes – These are collection of curated classes teaching a number of subjects, covering everything from baking break and cooking meat, to using a table saw, wiring a plug, and much more.
- Pirate Electronics – A step by step tutorial on getting started with electronics, teaching the basics of the various components, building up your knowledge gradually.
Kits
- The Arduino Starter Kit – This contains everything you need to get started learning the Arduino platform. It’s more expensive than similar kits on Amazon, but the quality of the projects outlined in the included documentation absolutely make it worth it.
- AdaBox – This is a mystery box, much like Loot Crate, with each box themed around a particular product or theme, with tutorials, ideas, and guides on how to get the most out of it. Either subscribe to receive them automatically, or buy them individually after they’re released.
Tools and Services
- Adafruit IO – Want to make your project talk to the Internet? Connect your existing project to the Internet to log, stream, and interact with the data it produces? Adafruit IO makes it easy.
- Tinkercad – Easy-to-use app for 3D design, electronics, and coding. It’s used by teachers, kids, hobbyists, and designers to imagine, design, and make anything!
- Canva – This is the ultimate desktop publishing tool for non-designer types such as myself. It has a number of templates for all the popular social platforms making it easy to craft that perfect Instagram advert, or design a flyer for printing.
- Pixabay – Lots of royalty free photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos, all for free. A lot of the images used for post thumbnails (before I switched to using my own photos) came from here.
- Pexels – Similar to Pixabay, lots of photos, released for free under their very flexible licence.
- Burst – More photos, this time sponsored by Shopify.
