Tom Swift, Makers & SF

Every Fan knows about Tom Swift, the teenage millionaire inventor who, in each book in the huge series, develops an amazing device and uses it to make a fortune or defeat an enemy (or both). When the first of the books was written the devices were pushing the limits of possible and of affordable. Today, the Maker Movement has shown that there are many interesting and useful gadgets that can be made easily and cheaply using readily available materials and tools. The Tom Swift-like Maker is no longer a very common SF trope, but it should be. The panel of Makers, Engineers and Fen discusses gadgets from various pieces of SF which can, or might, be achievable by existing makers.