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Grant Morris
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Meet America’s mad professor. For nearly 40 years Bob Iannini, founder of Information Unlimited, has been mail-order mentor and parts supplier to electronics hobbyists willing to take on some of the most dangerous DIY projects in the world.
Need kits, plans or supplies for a Tesla coil? Pick a size — Information Unlimited carries itty bitty 2-foot science-project-type Tesla coils, all the way up to terrifying 6.5-foot, 2-million-volt monstrosities. More practical consumers can pick up laser components, bug zappers and high-voltage transformers and switches. If that doesn't tickle your fancy, Iannini offers a massive EMP blaster gun kit capable of disrupting electronics or igniting explosive fuels with a radiating electromagnetic pulse — a pre-assembled unit will set you back just $32,000
"I was always into weapons," Iannini says. "Heavy duty. The scientific, electronics weapons part of it is good research. It's sound research, it's fascinating, it's interesting, and it's very highly marketable, you know, as long you don't come out with something that you're going to get some young crazy kid to take out a whole school or something."
From a 53-acre property in rural Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, Iannini and his team also build custom projects, like the three-toroid Tesla coil Chevy commissioned to promote the 2012 Volt, and manage Iannini’s patent portfolio — he’s won dozens of patents for everything from insect repelling to circuits that control the light of a cold cathode lamp. His two books Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius and More Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius enjoy a cult following — a third book in the series will come out in June, and Iannini says it will include, for the first time, plans for a functioning rail gun.
To anyone who knew him as a kid, Iannini’s career path must seem completely predictable. He blew off his left hand when he was 16, a junior in high school working on a science project. Later he was expelled with two months left in his senior year for "explosives and small things like that,” he says. “Naughty things.”
He gamed his way into college by promising to earn his GED after admission. He never actually earned his high school equivalency, but he left Northwestern University with a degree in electrical engineering. Straight after graduation, Iannini invented an electronic bug zapper and sold the design for $60,000, a staggering sum of money for a young man in the 1970s.
He used the profits to start Information Unlimited in his garage. It began as a mail-order catalog offering supplies, plans and projects to electronics enthusiasts. The company marketed its wares partly by publishing science experiments in the hobby mags .
"They were offbeat, and often just a little dangerous,” says Carl Laron, former editor of Radio-Electronics and Electronics Now. “So they were very popular with our readership.”
Above:
Information Unlimited founder Bob Iannini holds a handheld electromagnetic handgun. The gun — gamers may know it better as a Gauss gun — generates its power from eight off-the-shelf AA batteries. After the capacitor charges, the washer-like projectile launches from the coil gun at blink-and-you'll-miss-it speeds with a soft sound that can only be described as a mix of a champagne cork popping and someone pressing down on an industrial stapler. "Now if that hit you, it would hurt," Iannini says, after firing a ring into his office wall, leaving a dent in the sheetrock. "That would hurt, and if it hit you in the head it would draw blood, and if it hit you in the right spot it might kill you."
Information Unlimited founder Bob Iannini holds a handheld electromagnetic handgun. The gun — gamers may know it better as a Gauss gun — generates its power from eight off-the-shelf AA batteries. After the capacitor charges, the washer-like projectile launches from the coil gun at blink-and-you'll-miss-it speeds with a soft sound that can only be described as a mix of a champagne cork popping and someone pressing down on an industrial stapler. "Now if that hit you, it would hurt," Iannini says, after firing a ring into his office wall, leaving a dent in the sheetrock. "That would hurt, and if it hit you in the head it would draw blood, and if it hit you in the right spot it might kill you."
All photos: Grant Morris/Wired
