The path to becoming a successful inventor is easier than ever--but there are also a surplus of options, and it can be difficult to know where to start. Here's a step-by-step plan to inventing your own anything.


Each of TechShop’s five 15,000-square-foot locations contains more than $1 million in prototyping equipment and software. Its 3,000-plus members include entrants in the Google Lunar X Prize and the makers of the fastest electric motorcycle. Starting at $75/month; techshop.ws
Chicago’s first hackerspace, Pumping Station: One lets members use its tools, such as CNC machines and laser cutters, 24/7. Projects include pants that produce music and a biosensor array that reads patient vitals. Starting at $40/month; pumpingstationone.org
Genspace in Brooklyn caters to professional biologists and amateur beaker jockeys alike. It has everything from microscopes and incubators to PCR machines and spectrometers. $100/month; genspace.org
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


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Some great suggestions here. I love that there is workshop space available for inventors to develop their ideas!
Great article! Strangely enough, inventing things was on my mind this morning before I went to work. I have been hearing about work spaces for year but I never really thought about checking any out. It was a stroke of genius for whoever thought of it first. Its like a band space but for science!
hacker and maker spaces are great, if you have some around you that is...
personally i've had one or two ideas that i'd have liked to make myself or at the very least see made. i should talk to tech shop about possibly opening up a space somewhere here on the east coast...
to mars or bust!
1) This is awesome, I had no idea places like this existed.
2) Doesn't the guy in the top photo look kind of like Ellen DeGeneres?
... and by "the guy in the top photo" apparently I meant Edison. Who knew?
very handy
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