Fifty Dangerous Things is the first book from Tinkering Unlimited, which is the commercial endeavor of the folks who founded Tinkering School®: Julie Spiegler and Gever Tulley.

Gever Tulley was fortunate to grow up in a world full of possibilities and adventures. He and his big brother were free to explore their environment and invent their own projects while growing up in the wide-open rural environs of Northern California and interior British Columbia. Their curiosity was encouraged by their parents, who instilled early on a sensible approach to their experiments. Gever’s famous rule while babysitting: “If you’re going to play with fire, be sure to do it outside.” (Note that this was in the ever-wet yards of coastal Northern California, not the tinder-dry inland desert!)

In 2005, Gever founded Tinkering School to teach kids how to build things and in 2011 opened the doors to Brightworks. a K-12 school. He created the schools since he believes we all learn by fooling around. Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized. After years of creating playful hands-on projects for kids of all ages, Gever wanted to share with a wider audience the discovery that comes from this directed “fooling around”. Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) is his first book on the subject.

Julie has collaborated with Gever on virtually all his projects, including Tinkering School, Tinker Challenge, various technology start-ups, and production of the self-published version of Fifty Dangerous Things. She is still working her way through all 50 Dangerous Things.

brightworks, an extraordinary school: http://sfbrightworks.org
Tinkering School: http://tinkeringschool.com
Tinkering Unlimited: http://tinkering-unlimited.com
Gever Tulley: http://gevertulley.com

Here is Gever speaking at TED – the birth of the idea for Fifty Dangerous Things:

Tinkering School is a registered trademark of Tinkering Unlimited.