I've only had this book for a few days, but have found the projects unusual and offbeat. For the most part, they are not a rehash of old science projects. They are well described and each one has a good description of the science and math behind them. The illustrations are not overly detailed, but they do the job quite well. I found it a little odd that the description of what the project is about is separated from the chapter on the project. The summaries of what is interesting about the projects and simply what they do is in the front of the book. If you open to a project within the book, you'll wonder what the real appeal of the project is until you go to the front of the book.
The author is quite a tinkerer and at least one of the project toys is patented. I believe a few others are heading toward patents.
Several projects require access to a small amount of Mecanno (or Erector) set parts. These companies almost do not exist it the U.S. any longer. However, Brio recently started distributing Erector sets again. I'm sure one could find substitutes for the Mecanno parts at a local hardware store or maybe even make them.
