What's LucidScience.com all about?

What is LucidScience?

LucidScience is a community of electronics enthusiasts from students to professional engineers. Our community is all about using one's creative energy to invent new gadgets or modify and hack everyday devices into unique creations. LucidScience is a place to come and learn, share, and become inspired and no degree is necessary. The only skill that counts around here is the motivation to do it yourself, with some help from other likeminded people who also want to further their own knowledge. We truly believe that anyone with motivation can create virtually anything on a limited budget using inexpensive components. We believe this statement because we are actually doing this ourselves!

LucidScience is about affordable and open source projects for the everyday electronics hacker. The word "hacker" is often associated with someone doing something malicious. That's not how we see it. It's not about patents, large budgets, or how much educational or professional designations someone achieves. Never underestimate what can be accomplished by a motivated individual with a box of junk, a low budget soldering iron and a "never quit" attitude! Electronics is the ultimate hobby for the knowledge junkie because it demands a never ending ability to learn new skills, try new solutions, and to be persistent after multiple failures. Having an open mind and being able to think out-of-the box are important, too.

Our electronics plans and projects are often "From the Fringe", including many spy gadgets, laser projects, electronic bugs, transmitters, night vision devices, high voltage projects, and many of the other cool devices often associated with spy plans and projects. We like anything weird, controversial, experimental, and evil genius oriented, so "Electronics from the Fringe" will be the main focus of our electronics plans, spy gadget kits, and general electronics tutorials. This web site is an ongoing project and new things will be added regularly, at least once a week.

Who is LucidScience?

Brad & Kat, 1971

We are just two people who enjoy exercising our creative abilities. Brad Graham (RadBrad) and Kathy McGowan (Trinity) run LucidScience.com and AtomicZombie.com from a small country home using basic tools and materials that are available to anyone. There are no head offices, engineers, board of directors, middle managers, or shareholders behind our operation and we aim to keep it that way!

We started this World Wide Web venture like many noobs - wondering what a web server was, how it worked and what we needed to do to build an online community of people who are interested in the same stuff we are. But, thanks to many late nights, large cups of java, and serious "hate to lose" attitudes, we're always moving ahead to make it all come together.

We are proud of the fact that all of our Web ventures are the results of the labors of two highly motivated individuals with very little previous training in electronics, welding, programming, or webhosting. We're proof that anyone with persistence and motivation can achieve whatever goals he or she set, regardless of background. I guess you could just call us both "hackers", because we look at a problem and just chip away at it one bit at a time until a solution is found, often learning so much more due to the trial and error process.

Personally, I have found that knowledge gained "the hard way" is always more valuable than a direct lesson as it forces the mind to wander "outside the box" and attempt solutions that may fail yet at the same time lead to extended learning. A true hacker may begin one project and end up with something totally unique and unexpected - invention by accident!

LucidScience is just Brad and Kathy...husband and wife, nerds and partners for life.

Why do we do this?

We do this because we can. Seriously, why else would a sane person want to rip the cover off a brand new electronic appliance only to rip out wires and contort it into something completely different? We were born this way, and most likely the majority of our visitors are also infected by this kind of the "hacker" bug. The satisfaction that comes from creating something unique using your own gray matter far exceeds any amount of joy that comes from knowing how much you paid for something, even if it may be lesser quality. Give a true hacker a black box with wires hanging out, an overheating breadboarded circuit and they will always find it so much more enjoyable than the equivalent factory made device with a 7 digit serial number! "I built it myself" trumps "I paid a lot for it" every single time in our world.

We run LucidScience.com and AtomicZombie.com because we love to inspire others to hack, create, lean, and share their creative knowledge. We are always in a constant state of learning, so an Internet community becomes the ultimate resource for like minded individuals. Our goal is to bring together those with a mind to create, learn, and share into one large worldwide space so that we can all benefit from each other.

Our community operates with an attitude that all participants are equal, and a that a person who has just started will soon acquire the skills that will allow him/her to help others. Many times, the solution to a difficult technical problem can be found by the "untrained eye" since the ability to examine variables that are "not in the manual" can be a powerful skill, a skill that all hackers have learned to trust.

We do this for the same reason you do - because you can!

How can you participate?

If you are the type of person who cannot resist pulling the cover off a black box in order to understand its inner secrets, then you are the type of person who we hope will stay and participate in our forums and gallery. Our site relies fully on word of mouth, so please pass our link around if you know of any other like minded individuals who may enjoy our free community. We are here to learn from each other and expand our knowledge.

We are always looking for like minded individuals to participate in our forum, and will do our best to ensure that those who are just beginning this hobby are just as welcome as those who are experts in their field. Our gallery is open to all types of electronics projects. If you have a cool DIY project to share, please consider sending it to us for submission. If you want to stay up to date on new projects and happenings at LucidScience, then you can also subscribe to our newsletter.

Web traffic is fuel that powers LucidScience, and we always appreciate it when our link is passed around to help expand our World Wide community.