All over London, a new subculture is emerging. Artists, engineers and even the odd journalist are ripping apart electronic toys, reprogramming them and creating entirely new gadgets.
Last weekend, I decided to join the budding Heath Robinsons, known as tinkerers, by taking part in a weekend workshop learning their ways.
At an ungodly hour on Saturday, I arrived at the London Knowledge Lab, an offshoot of the University of London. There, I was equipped with the tools of the trade - an electronic breadboard, a bag of components, and a piece of kit known as an arduino.
The arduino is essentially a mini computer that can act on sensors - anything from a light collector to a command from a web site - and then trigger a series of events you program in. Look at any recent electronic art installation, and the chances are behind the scenes there's an arduino running it.
Our first task was to get our new toy to simply flashing a blinking LED by building an electronic circuit then programming the arduino to control it. Within minutes, we'd moved on to flashing and dimming the light, and controlling it via a light sensor.
On the second day, we were set free to build our own projects. Mine, rather ambitiously as it turned out, was to create a sensor for a home electricity meter that would drive a motorised pointer on the wall to reflect how much power was being used by my vast collection of gadgets.
On reflection, I should probably have stuck with the flashing light we'd built the day before, but nonetheless the tutors were very patient in explaining exactly how it might work (And no, mine didn't work by the end of the day - although amazingly, after a bit more messing about at home, it now does).
My fellow tinkerers built everything from musical instruments controlled by the wave of a hand to a hi tech light that changed colour as you waved your hand over it.
The company behind the weekend, tinker, admit they have been amazed by the response, and so far have run and sold out seven of the beginners workshops, and also run regular pub meetings for enthusiasts, as well as more advanced classes.
There's something oddly organic and lo-tech about the whole movement - it's about recycling, essentially, and old toys, computers and even home appliances form the basis of many of the gadgets created. While they are pushing the boundaries of art and electronic installation, they are doing it all with kit that might once have run a child's toy or controlled a kettle - and in a world where the launch of a new mobile phone can create headlines around the world, it's an approach that's very refreshing.
It might seem an unusual way to spend the weekend (and admittedly you'd need to be a bit of a nerd in the first place to consider it), but I'd highly recommend breaking out the resistors and capacitors and giving it a go.

www.tinker.it