---The LEGO® Technic Idea Book: Fantastic Contraptions is a collection of hundreds of working examples of simple yet fascinating Technic models that you can build based on their pictures alone. Each project uses color-coded pieces and is photographed from multiple angles, making it easy to see how the models are assembled without the need for step-by-step instructions. Every model illustrates a different principle, concept, or mechanism that will inspire your own original creations. You're encouraged to use these elements as building blocks to create your own masterpieces.

The Technic models in Fantastic Contraptions include working catapults, crawling spiders, and bipedal walkers, as well as gadgets powered by fans, propellers, springs, magnets, and vibration. You'll even learn how to add lights, pneumatics, and solar panels to your own models.

This visual guide, the third in the three-volume LEGO Technic Idea Book series, is the brainchild of master builder Yoshihito Isogawa of Tokyo, Japan. Each title is filled with photos of Isogawa's unique models, all of which are designed to fire the imaginations of LEGO builders young and old.

Imagine. Create. Invent. Now, what will you build?

NOTE: The LEGO Technic Idea Book series uses parts from various Technic sets. If you don't have some of the pieces shown in a particular model, experiment by substituting your own parts or visit the No Starch Press website for a list of the special parts used in the book.

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For those who understand the significance of home-grown foods to surviving and thriving in difficult times, F. F. Rockwell's no-nonsense Home Vegetable Gardening: A Complete And Practical Guide To The Planting And Care Of All Vegetables, Fruits And Berries Worth Growing For Home Use, may be the best single volume, practical manual of family-feeding, high-yield home gardening ever compiled. With some, the home vegetable garden is a hobby; with others, especially in these days of high prices, a great help. There are many in both classes whose experience in gardening has been restricted within very narrow bounds, and whose present spare time for gardening is limited. It is as "first aid" to such persons, who want to do practical, efficient gardening, and do it with the least possible fuss and loss of time, that this book is written. “Home Vegetable Gardening” can be very useful for the small space gardener as it discusses at length, basics of gardening. Anywhere the book describes use of horses, logic would indicate that a tiller of varying sizes could be substituted. Crop rotation is also discussed, and multiple acres are not needed for this. Instructions on constructing a manure-driven hotbed (the way things were done before electric seedling heat mats were around) are also included. Another section of “Home Gardening” discusses prepping sods for seed starting, the way things were done years before pellet pots, plastic seed flats and cell packs were common. “Home Gardening” is old enough to resurrect much of the forgotten techniques used by our grandparents and great-grandparents, when they had to garden more naturally and self-sufficiently rather than buying everything from the garden store. It might also be helpful for the budding survivalist who no longer wants to rely on manufactured products. The list of seed varieties is fascinating. When it comes to gardening basics, the publishing date of this book matters very little: many things haven’t changed at all. In fact, this book might be better for beginners since it is a book that encourages a do-it-yourself and a 'from the ground up' tone. It is almost void of any pre-made devices and there are no gimmicky products being hocked. In “Home Gardening,” the old standby tools are recommended, time tested and readily available.

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Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.

Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book, and has thoroughly researched and tested all of the techniques she recommends for the home garden.

This newly updated and greatly expanded Second Edition includes additional information about how to start each vegetable from seed, which has turned the book into a complete growing guide. Local knowledge about seed starting techniques for each vegetable has been shared by expert gardeners from seven regions of the United States-Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast/Gulf Coast, Midwest, Southwest, Central West Coast, and Northwest.

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Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.
Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.
Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.
Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman's own farm.
His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.
A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can't be done."

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For those who love boldness in design, Los Angeles-based interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard demonstrates his mastery of dramatic environments for a clientele of celebrities. Drawn to glamour, Martyn Lawrence Bullard moved from London to Los Angeles to pursue acting but became a star decorator instead. His designs balance the contemporary with the traditional, the Occidental with the ethnic. His celebrity clients’ homes are inspiring in their chic yet sumptuous styles, including Sir Elton John’s disco-luxurious apartment with a python-skin bed, green lacquered walls, and mirrored cabinets; Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo’s hip Mediterranean villa in the Hollywood Hills; Cher’s residences-a Moorish palazzo in Malibu and a Beverly Hills Indian fantasy; and Tamara Mellon’s New York City penthouse that dazzles with bold artwork and striking color. With a knack for beautiful and dramatic spaces that don’t sacrifice comfort, Lawrence Bullard-who stars in the upcoming Bravo television show Million Dollar Decorators-reveals his know-how for creating a sensational home.