Cy Tymony

Good, but unless you have multiple watch batteries a cassette player and other obsolete technologies, this may be too outdated. It was published in 03, but references a lot of things I don't have around any more. 3 for the stuff I didn't know though.

Lame.

I will give author credit for some ingenuity, but this book was a little too goofy and the devices it describes were neither very useful nor very interesting. When I picked it up I thought it might be for basement dwelling, pipe-bomb building cranks. I was disappointed. This was probably aimed at precocious 8 year olds in the mid-90s.

The main problems are:

1. Egregious over use of the word sneaky. I didn’t do a word count, but I believe it is used in every third sentence.
2. Lame show more ideas. One suggestion is cutting the ends off your shoe laces and stuffing the resulting nylon tube with very small survival tools like needles, aspirin, and paper clips. The author then suggests that the resulting lumpy string can still be used to tie one’s shoes.
3. Failure to age well. It was published in 2005, but even then I think cassette recorders (the source of vital components for several of the sneaky device recipes) were becoming scarce even then. In 2020 I haven’t seen one in years. show less

You can learn how to make glass out of sugar! While I would not have the patience, I know a lot of teenage boys who would totally geek out on this book. Sequel is Sneakier uses...

How to make a metal detector, invisible ink, and a gadget jacket (complete with secret release sleave). This could make for a few fun experiments with kids.