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Monk Makes

Tucked away in the undergrowth of the semi-rural suburbs, just outside a small town called Leyland, is Monk Makes HQ. Inside, many wondrous things are made, with wires and circuitboards and imagination. But it hasn’t always been this way.

Simon Monk has always had a passion for fiendish gadgetry and electronic experiments. In 1991, he graduated from Lancaster University with a doctorate in Software Engineering, and went on to co-found a software development firm based in Manchester. Yet the call of emerging technologies in Open Source hardware harkened him back to his youth, and so in 2010 he found himself writing his first commercial book, 30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius. His success opened a doorway for him to go on to write even bigger and better works, and now Simon is the proud author of over 25 different books on Arduino, Raspberry Pi and electronics, including the best-sellers Programming Arduino and The Raspberry Pi Cookbook.

Yet something was still missing. Fans of Simon’s books used to have a difficult time gathering all the various parts to get started with the exciting hardware that Simon wrote about in his books. That’s when Simon had another bright idea. With the help of his partner-in-crime Linda, they started developing the kits themselves designed with customers in mind, and thus Monk Makes was born.

Simon divides his time between writing and designing new products for Monk Makes and Linda runs the business. Both can often be found at Maker Faires, especially if they are somewhere sunny or interesting.