What’s really great about teh Internets is how easy it is to get exposure to stuff you wouldn’t usually see. Take the wide world of hardware hacking for instance. Clearly populated by incredibly intelligent beings from a distant galaxy, this community has up to now lurked in hidden basements across the world, dreaming up cool new toys and building stuff…just for a laugh. The problem is, we mere mortals have had no way to interact with these exotic creatures, until now.

Tindie is an online supermarket for DIY electronic gadget projects which is the perfect place for all of us wannabe hacker types to keep up to date with cool technologies, and maybe even invest some cash in having a go ourselves off the back of the work of others. The site is laid out in a typically bare-bones fashion, dominated by photos of a variety of home grown DIY projects which are now up for sale. Like this awesome Mini Stylophone (below).

There’s no hint of whether you need a beard to get involved, but we suspect it will help in the negotiations when you buy into a project. There’s also a wonderful ‘Wanted’ section, where we inept peeps can post projects we would like these super-people to build. Things like ‘a wireless Twitter display’, or ‘a motion activated robot to scare my cats away’. Oh such bliss. I just hope the site gets the global love it deserves, and we wannabes finally have a place to go, rub shoulders with giants and build out our dreams.

If there’s one small quibble, I would say it’s in the size of the project images. Big is obviously good, but the gigantic size featured on the site front page can make navigation a little hazardous if not downright confusing. But niggles aside, the site is lovely, and definitely will be going into my bookmarks for rainy days, alongside the other wonderful place Inventables.

 https://youtu.be/AgQSx6rC_zI