Make: Fire

Preface

“Sweet lady propane.”

—Hank Hill, King of the Hill

As a kid, I loved building models. Seeing a completed fighter plane, PT boat, or hot rod emerge from injection molded sheets was a major thrill. But by middle school, I found that I was gluing airplane parts to hot wheels cars, mixing boxes of parts to make new models, and generally painting outside the lines. As much fun as it was to build the designers’ models, there was an extra thrill in building my own creations.

By high school, I began expanding my toolset and building things that weren’t from kits. Line-following and light-sensing robots wandered around my room. I began buying project books and devouring the skills and knowledge they contained. I did build things from the books, ...