About half the projects in this book are devoted to musical instruments and electronics—areas of homebrew tinkering that seem to invariably capture the adolescent imagination. If any of these projects end up tickling your fancy, then go out and get a hold of these books:

Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking by Nicolas Collins. This is a great book on building experimental electronic instruments (even simple, high-quality microphones), modifying noisy toys into instruments, and creating sound-art installations. You’ll clearly see its influence on projects like the Spring Reverb (Chapter 14) and the Blinkie Tremolo (Chapter 15).

Electronic Projects for Musicians and its companion, Do-It-Yourself Projects for Guitarists, both by Craig Anderton. Some of Anderton’s pro-grade designs are a little out-of-date, but you can buy complete kits for them online (mostly through PAiA, http://www.paia.com/). Both books offer plenty of great design ideas and improvements you can add to electric guitars yourself (and adapt to other electrified instruments).

Guerrilla Home Recording: How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio by Karl Coryat. This is a hardware/software agnostic primer on audio engineering and will help you squeeze great recordings out of any old setup you can hack together.

If robots are more your speed, then get copies of JunkBots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels: Building Simple Robots with BEAM Technology by David Hrynkiw and Mark Tilden and Robot Builder’s Bonanza by Gordon McComb and Myke Predko.

Electronic tinkerers and makers of all levels will benefit from a handful of books by Forrest M. Mims III. A great place to start is Getting Started in Electronics, which offers a solid foundation in basic electronic theory and skills, as well as scads of great, simple circuits. His books are often sold in RadioShack stores; they are sparse (mostly schematics with little further explanation), but the designs are robust, with lots of opportunities to adapt them to new and novel projects. Circuit benders (folks that make a hobby of torturing new, noise-musical sounds from old electronic toys) love Mims’s designs and frequently hack them into their creations.