If you’re a maker who’s thinking of turning your passion into a business, this one’s for you.
TJ McCue, journalist, blogger, maker (and sugru user) is writing a book of case studies, tips and pointers for those of you thinking of going pro.
There are so many amazing ideas and inventions out there, and far too many of them don’t get realised for one reason or another – so I asked him to tell us more.

First things first, tell us a little about yourself.
I work as a business writer and as a startup consultant helping companies to get off the ground. My most recent effort is at Forbes to explore how the maker community is driving innovation and opportunity around the world. I did a roundup post of all the cool Maker Business stories in 2011 at Make, too.

Tell us more about your new book and why you’re writing it. Who it’s for?
You know, Jane, so many makers ask me all the time whether they should turn their passion or their dream into a company.  I almost always say yes, but it isn’t easy – it always, always hinges on finding customers.  Most makers and business owners work the hardest on marketing and sales.  This book is aiming to uncover what made it possible for companies like Makerbot, Adafruit or Sparkfun to be a success. What are their stories?
People are looking for alternatives to “regular jobs” – and that’s partly because they can’t find them, but I believe it is something deeper. More and more people are beginning to question “Am I doing something meaningful with my life?” People want to contribute something to the community around them. Sometimes that’s online; just as often it is in a local community of neighbors, in real life.

My goal with this book is to talk with the maker/hacker founders – people like Bre Pettis from MakerBot Industries, Limor Fried at Adafruit, Rick Pollack at MakerGear, Eric Wilhelm at Instructables, yourself and many people you or I have never heard of but who are doing fundamentally good work that supports other makers. What are their secrets, more or less, to driving awareness and building a business?

You’re crowdfunding on Kickstarter at the moment to publish the book. If others in the sugru community are interested, how can they help or get involved?
It’s a big effort to put out a quality book. And although I’ve helped many others produce their own, this is my first. If people like the project, I’d love them to become a backer.
Just as importantly, though, is the connection to others in the sugru community. Since writing about sugru on Forbes, I’ve met tons of interesting people doing creative and useful projects with your invention. If people think the book would be useful but can’t back it with dollars, then sharing it socially is super valuable and appreciated.

To talk to TJ about the book or anything else, connect with him on twitter @TJMcCue or via his blog on Forbes.com

Last question – what’s your favourite sugru hack?
It is an ultra-simple one – I built a new handle for my garbage can lid that broke off! Saved me $50 for a replacement can. Plus, I protected the corners on my mobile phone. It’s not pretty, but it works when I drop it!

This awesome project was sent to us by Kirsty in Melbourne:

“I fashioned a macro lens for my phone! I got all excited about it & now I’ve made a how-to so you can do it too.  I used some bits of a broken lens (lucky I don’t chuck stuff out) and sugru – it was a quick & easy project.”

And the results look amazing! Check out this close up photo she took with it!

Kirsty’s how-to makes this look super easy…

You can see more of Kirsty’s projects at her blog and follow her on twitter @kootoyoo

See what we did there?

Till now you’ve been mainly sending us your hacks and repairs by email. We thought it was about time that we got out of the way and everyone got to meet each other more directly. So we built our new community site, gurus.

I’ve been in touch with lots of you over the last 2 years, so I can tell you – you’re a pretty awesome bunch! You should meet!

gurus is now the very best place to post / upload your hacks, or to ask for tips and advice on your sugru project – it’s basically a one stop shop for everything sugru / hacking / repairing related. Browse around, there are already lots of fantastic hacks and repairs and sugru gurus on there already such as a step by step on how to repair a rip in a suitcase and a great idea for insulating long screwdrivers.

We’re pretty psyched about this so we’re launching a new monthly contest now too. As well as Hack of the Month, we’ll also now have a Guru of the Month award too. The best post, comments and interactions from a guru that month will get 5 packs of sugru and a lovely Hack Things Better t-shirt, and we’ll announce the winner in our monthly community email update.

Looking forward to meeting you there. And, more importantly, you guys meeting each other!

I’ve been meaning to post about this very awesome project for a while, and when Oscar emailed to say he was taking part in last weekend’s Astronomers Ball organised by the equally awesome Guerilla Science people, I got excited all over again.

Back last year sometime, Oscar had a simple idea:
“Laying down on the grass and observing the stars at night is one of these simple things that makes you escape from daily reality. Contemplating this natural wonder makes you feel very small and brings up many questions about human kind and the universe. Living in big cities such as London has many advantages, but it is unfortunately difficult to see a clear sky. The city lights, the English weather and the pollution hide the contemplation of this poetic open space. The Big Dipper project is an attempt to recreate what we cannot see anymore. This ongoing work tries to bring back the stars, the constellations, and maybe more…”

The Big Dipper project from Oscar Lhermitte on Vimeo.

I met Oscar first when he won the first micro-grant we awarded from the London Chapter of the Awesome Foundation to help make the project happen. It’s been amazing to see it go from that initial test to the traveling guerilla project it is today. He tried getting helium balloons to suspend super bright LEDs, tried shining lasers (not the best idea), flying kites, and lots of other ways of suspending small bright lights in such a way to achieve the very tricky problem of making static constellation patterns.

This process of testing took around a year, until he came to his final solution – a spider web of catapulted fibre optic cables suspended between 3 points. Sometimes he uses trees, sometimes buildings, sometimes cranes.

Throughout all the technical development, the project also evolved conceptually and in the end as well as recreating constellations Oscar began creating his own, based on old and new myths about London – the Fox, the V2 and my favourite, the Irish Giant and Hunter.

This summer 12 constellations were installed at various locations around London, and people went stargazing by following a google map with info about the myths of the constellations. The project is being installed now at various festivals and events, and I’m sure new constellations will emerge each time.

Follow Oscars projects at his blog, and since there’s a good chance you’re now inspired – find out more about the Awesome Foundation here, the next deadline for London applications is Oct 31st.

A while back a sugru user called Stefan sent us images of a bouncy camera he’d made for his 3 year old budding photographer.  We loved the idea, and his design, so much we awarded it Hack of the Month, and then we just had to make our own! The funnest bit was of course testing it out throwing it around the yard outside.

To make your own, follow our full step by step instructable!

Stefan, whose idea this is, is an industrial designer based in Germany.

It’s usually hard to choose the hack of the month. Not this time though.

Listen up, this one’s from Walt in West Virginia.

“I used sugru to fix an old soldering iron cord a while back, and that made me happy.  Then I gave some to a friend so he could fix his mobile phone power cord, and that made him happy (more than the tape he was using).

Then I used it for something that made me real happy.

I have a son who is bedridden and fed through a tube, surgically implanted into his stomach through his abdomen.  After a couple of months one of the connectors always seems to come apart at the same place. (He’s had a PEG tube for nearly 10 years).

When this happens, we have been told to get a new one from his doctor.  This is time consuming and seems very wasteful.

I start using superglue (ca glue) every week (that’s about all it will last) to reconnect the parts.  Then after about a month of that we have to see his doctor to get a new tube. (a process that takes only a few minutes, however the hour drive to the office, the long wait for our turn and the hour drive home is very uncomfortable for my son).

The last time the tube came apart was about 6 months ago.  I began with the weekly dose of superglue.  Five or six weeks later I remembered the sugru packets on my shelf.  I didn’t make it fancy and photogenic like all the beautiful pictures of the hacks on your site.  But it has been holding for more than 4 months now and is showing no sign of letting go.

(My magsafe connector is next)”

The Maker Faire season is here at last!
First out of the block is Newcastle here in the UK – this weekend, the 12th and 13th March at the Centre for Life.  This faire is smallish if you compare it to the Mama Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area one in May, but it’s largish if you compare it to something else. They’re expecting a decent 5000 or so makers to turn up from all over the UK and hang out for the weekend. Come and join us!

We had a great laugh there last year and made some cool new friends, like Indie Biotech, the lovely soldering teachers, and arch-photographer and customiser @lloydyp.  The lineup is longer this year, and now includes some of the most active UK based Instructablers, the new project funding site getitmade, and some cool foodie looking people called DIY Pie, so it looks like it’s gonna be even cooler! We’re getting excited putting together all our stuff for the stand …

We decided to mix it up this year, and bring you some other rocking repair stuff as well as sugru. Say hello to the HACKquarium Repairium – the traveling roadshow spreading the joy of a life of repairing.

Come along and mend your socks and moth-eaten scarves with Woolfiller, learn a modern twist on the ancient Japanese ceramic repair technique called Kintsugi, and hack your stuff better with sugru for free on the day, and get your mits on kits of all of the above to take home!

Come and play!

Last summer, after Jim trekked to the North pole with the help of his sugru hacked ski poles, we realised that sugru was now being used in 6 of the 7 continents on earth. (How amazing is that?!) Who could resist then, asking if any of you had any friends on the last continent that would enjoy sugru?

It was a longshot and we didn’t really expect anyone to come forward but… 2 people did! Gus and Christian had friends in McMurdo Station, which is one of the main research stations, where 1000 of the approx 5000 people in Antarctica live. Imagine our excitement – Antarctica is of course one of the most difficult places on earth for humans to survive, and by definition the community there has to be self-sufficient – when something breaks or doesn’t work very well – not only do you not want to go buy a new one – but that option just isn’t there!  In October we sent sugru to Gus and Christians friends. We haven’t had hacking reports from them yet… but recently another hacker got in touch.

John has just come back from the WAIS camp (West Antarctic Ice Sheet 79*28′S,112*05′W ) which is about 600 miles from Mcmurdo Station, 600 miles from the South Pole and about 100 miles from Byrd Station in Western Antarctica.  After 5 years of drilling, he and his team have just finished drilling the second deepest ice core bore hole in the world (!!!) – here’s a picture of the last piece of ice retrieved from their bore hole.  It came from 3,331.538 metres down.  Guess how old it is?

My mind was blown!  It’s 90,000 – 110,000 years old.

And well, the reason John got in touch was not only to tell us about the unbelievable awesomeness that they had just achieved, but also to tell us about the hacks and repairs he did with sugru while he was there! Here’s John with Francie, one of the cooks at the camp – her paring knife loosened from the handle and he used sugru to repair it.  And he also repaired his glasses and his watch…

Well, now we can proudly say that there are truly awesome sugru users on every continent on Earth.  John – you’re a legend!

Some great stuff happening in Ireland at the mo!
Green Machines is the latest exhibition in the Science Gallery in Dublin. It asks you to vote for the products and technology that have the most potential to enable more sustainable living. The selection is pretty varied with a bit of a leaning towards technology that also has a direct social impact…often in developing countries… from the ugly but amazing Adspecs glasses (surely there must be a way to make these nicer? Or maybe I’m missing something?) to the Pavegen pavement that captures walkers kinetic energy (wow, does this work does anyone know?) to the Recompute carboard PC to sugru. I’m looking forward to checking it all out next Friday when I’m over in Dublin for Science Week. Anyone been already? The show continues until 17th December. Oh and we’re delighted that the Science Gallery shop are now stocking sugru too. Our first Irish retailer

We’re chuffed to be involved in Science Week Ireland next week – It’s all about showing the exciting and creative side of science, with a not-so-subtle mission to breed more mad scientists in Ireland. Or something like that anyway. I’m going to be telling the story of sugru at the Paccar Theatre in the Science Gallery on Friday 12th Nov at 1pm. If you’re around you can book tickets here, and if you come, do stick around afterwards for a chat There’s lots of cool stuff on – TOG, the Dublin hackerspace are running workshops to show you how to design interactive devices and make your own biofuel.

A few weeks ago, I read about Eri Gentry and her friends in San Francisco. Their story got me into inspiration overdrive. They believe that the inventions and innovations to solve the world’s big problems will come not just from big companies and universities, but from creative and curious people working off their own back, in their own time, on their own ideas.
Listen up, this is really brilliant.

At the start of the recession, when lots of Biotech Companies in her local area were going belly up, Eri Gentry went shopping – she bought over $1m worth of lab equipment for $30,000 and got the kit set up and working in her garage. She invited her friends to use it, and then they invited their friends and pretty soon they had a full blown community using the lab in her garage experimenting and learning about bio technology. They call it BioCurious – and members include people that want to start their own bio-tech venture, graduates out of work, and generally curious and keen amateur biologists. They join as members, and have open access then to all the facilities and the support of the founders and community then, listen to what they have to say in this video they made to raise funding for their first years overheads on Kickstarter:

I guess a big part of why this gets me so excited is that I spent a few years myself learning and doing materials science after I had the idea for sugru. I’d studied biology at school and always loved doing scientific experiments then, but after that I went to art college and left science far behind in favour of drawing and making amusing (to me now) bikes. I had no idea that after graduating in product design years later that I would find myself in a white coat for the best part of 3 years – not a good look for me by the way!
We started our business with a small government grant, so we realised pretty much from the word go that contracting laboratory work out wasn’t realistic. Luckily for us, silicone chemistry formulation doesn’t require big bits of kit like bio tech so we were able to set up our first lab for less than £5000. After a few fun days training in the basics of laboratory work I was able to get started into formulation experiments.
Ok, it has to be said that I had a lot of help from two amazing scientists Ian and Steve, who had recently retired from top jobs in the silicone industry. Big credit to these great guys for believing in me and my dream by the way! Over the next few years, we worked together through the development of the basic chemistry and patenting, until later with a little more funding behind us we were able to start collaborating with university laboratories, specialist testing companies, science students and steadily investing in our own lab as well, until a few years ago when Tom, our now resident official materials scientist took over most of the science from me (I love it so I’m never giving all of it up!) – and then we were able to refine sugru into the great product it is today (not perfect of course though and the R&D is and I hope always will be ongoing).
Looking back I have such happy memories of this time (you know how your brain tricks you into forgetting all those hard days when nothing was going right?! Well thank god for that! ha ha). I just wish I took more pictures. Here are two I could find that make me smile !

Anyway, the point is not about me or sugru at all, but how incredibly excited I am for BioCurious and all the others like them, and what’s starting to look like a movement of citizen science. I can’t wait for the day when we hear of a groundbreaking cure or fuel or something and it’s come from a community lab like this. It’s going to happen.