The Ultimate DIY Tech Upgrades Guide: Build Your Own Laser + 74 Other Way-Cool Gadget Hacks

Tech Upgrades is for anyone who’s ever wished they could build their own touchscreen, brew up and use conductive ink, rig a mouse that you can operate with your feet, or make a rad engraved computer tower that glows in the dark—essentially, it’s for fun-loving nerds everywhere.

 

Used to be, whenever you had a computer problem or techie glitch, you went and found the nearest geek to help fix it. But now, there’s a new movement afoot—a band of inventive and self-reliant geeks who hack computer and software to solve problems (and, in some cases, just to have fun). From building your own computer out of a cereal box to modifying safety goggles to see infrared rays, from skinning your laptop with steampunk trimmings to divising a foxhole radio, and from setting up a projector for your iPhone to working out with a dumbbell of old CDs, this book makes being a nerd, well. Cool.

 

Activities include:

 

• Rig a DIY Polygraph

 

• Listen in on a Foxhole Radio

 

• Tack Up a Dipole Antenna

 

• Craft a Cell-phone Cantenna

 

• Hang HDTV-Antenna Art

 

• Mod an Xbox Controller into an iPhone Case

 

• Make Your Smartphone “Bounceable”

 

• Set Up an Electric Home Secretary

 

• Rig a Smartphone Projector

 

• Charge a Phone with Solar Rays

 

• Make a Tennis Ball Smartphone Tripod

 

• Turn Your Old Netbook into a Touchscreen Tablet

 

• Fashion a DIY Stylus for Your Touchscreen Device

 

• Protect Your Touchscreen with Thin Vinyl

 

• Stash a Flash Drive in a Cassette

 

• Make a Pink-Eraser Flash Driver

 

• Fake It with a Sawed-Off Flash Drive

 

• House a Flash Drive in a LEGO

 

• Hack a Foot-Operated Mouse

 

• Trick Out Your Computer Tower with Engraving

 

• Turn Your Laptop into a White Board

 

• Dye Your Laptop

 

• Make a Steampunk-Inspired Laptop Case

 

• Turn on Your Computer with a Magnet

 

• Shield Your Screen from Prying Eyes

 

• Print in Invisible Ink

 

• Keep Your Laptop Cool with Copper Coils

 

• Connect a Junked Out Typewriter to Your Computer

 

• Make Keyboard Thumbtacks

 

• Rig a Superportable Keyboard

 

• Create a Glowing Mousepad

 

• Put an Old Circuit Board to New Use

 

• Make a Laptop Stand froma Three-Ring Binder

 

• Build a USB Hub into Your Desk

 

• Stash Your Printer in a Drawer

 

• Mount Office Supplies Behind Your Monitor

 

• Organize Loose Cables

 

• Make a Floppy-Disk Box

 

• Get Pumped with a CD Dumbbell

 

• Assemble a Cereal-Box Spectrometer

 

• Make an External Hard Drive

 

• Build a Computer out of a Cereal Box

 

• Transform an Everyday Lightbulb into a Plasma Globe

 

• Light Up Sketches with Home-Made Conductive Ink

 

• Hack Infrared Goggles

 

• Decimate with a DIY Laser Cutter

 

• Create Glass Objects out of Sand

 

• Shine a Mini Flash Light

 

• Brighten Up a Standard-Issue Flashlight

 

• Beam a Batman-Inspired Spotlight

 

• Get Techie with Aluminum Foil

 

• Improvise a Tripod

 

• Mount a Camera on Your Bike

 

• Build a Time-Lapse Camera Stand

 

• Rig a Plastic-Bottle Diffuser

 

• Make Your Camera Waterproof

 

• Create a Peephole Fisheye Lens

 

• Adapt a Manual Ring to Your DLSR

 

• Snap a Self-Portrait with a DIY Remote Shutter Release

 

• Set Up a High-Speed Flash

 

• Build a Ginormous Camera

 

 

About the Author

 

Founded in 1872, Popular Science is the world’s largest science and technology magazine, with 6.7 million readers. Each month, Popular Science reports on the intersection of science and everyday life, delivering a new look at the future now. It’s the ultimate guide to what’s new and what’s next. Popular Science is one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the United States, and is published in five languages and nine countries. Its web site, popsci.com, has been readers’ first stop for up-to-the-minute science news since the site first went live in 1999.