I am, in real life, a geek. I'm teaching myself electrical engineering in my spare time, and know just enough about a lot of things to bodge together all sorts of odd things from other odd things.
What I'd like to know, however, is how to use this in-game. For example, if you leave me in a junkyard long enough to collect some windshield-wiper motors, two identical wheels off a tricycle or wagon, a 12v battery of some type (they're common), and give me access to ordinary R/C gear, I can build a reasonably zippy drone. Give me access to grenades, and I can build a suicide drone that can take out a small building.
The same applies to these:
1. The magnetic grenade. This is a stupidly simple device: Have a standard grenade, but with high-strength neodiyum magnets sticking out of it in a tetrahedral shape on a few inches of flexible wire. The topmost one, which will extend more or less upwards, will grab onto a passing ferrous object...like a car. Just make sure to use a remote detonator.

2. The Spudgun. I've built one of these, and I can tell you it's quite possible to make a portable weapon running off of a C02 canister intended for paintball that will lob a grenade roughly 100 feet with ease. Via remote. For under 80$.

3. The Roly-Poly. This is based off of a cheap R/C toy. Take a sphere, cut it in half down the equator. Each side is connected to a different motor, and you have a weight offset on the inside.
The motors will turn the sides; due to the offset weight, moving both motors forwards will cause the sphere to move forwards, and you can change directions much like a tank. It can't be knocked over, and is very compact. And it's dead easy to use an airburst grenade for the offset weight, while keeping the weight under 2 lbs. and the size under 6" in diamter.

How would you rule their construction?

MacGyver _is_ a show from the eighties, and, well. Sometimes, on-the-fly gadgetry is neat. I figure that it'd potentially be a dual test or possibly it's own active skill.

Linked to... well, honestly, I don't know whether or not it'd link to logic, intuition, or the average of both.

Macguyverism would be a group of knowledge skills including, but not limited to, Physics Chemestry and Engineering.

A know skill from the Macguyverism group would be used to determine if you can find useful parts or not. From there, the proper Technical Skill would be used to construct the device.

For example, constructing a raft would require a knowledge test to find useful materials and then a Nautical Mechanic test to build the darn thing.

Or just buy Knowsofts.

Seriously, re: phys/chem/engi.

In the show, it's mentioned that he has a college-level grasp of the three subjects, and very possibly a doctorate in one of them. As well as being a computer hacker.

It is a very, very silly show, and yet I love it.

i think the most fair way to do MacGuyverism is to use it to reduce the cost of a device. i would probably have one MacGuyverism skill for each B/R skill.

Or possibly allow a device that works for only Success combat turns.

Col. Jack O'Neil does not equal McGuyver

Non Violence. is that why both McGuyver and O'Niell always seem to be running away from rathewr large explosions?

Non Violence? do you even watch the SG1?
Jack constantly shoots people and kills bad guys. He's military.

The few times McGuyver was given a gun he refused to fire it, instead he took it apart and used it for some soft of makeshift gizmo.

McGyver Action? That's what Industrial Mechanics is used for.

Don't make up new skills if existing ones already do the trick.

Hyz,

I noticed that too, explosives = OK, but guns = bad? never made sense, but still I watched the entire first season on DVD....

How I would resolve this.

Perception test or Search test for available parts, either a one shot test for a quick glance for whats available or an extended test to find specific parts in a jumble.

Followed by a Hardware or Mechanic test to assemble the device.

Followed by an explosives test to arm it.

You have to keep in mind that MacGyver blows up a JEEP.

With a PINECONE.

I'm not sure it should require a success test. I'm a high school student, and with the exception of ordinary grenades, I can get access to most of this stuff for next to nothing. In 2070, I could pay homeless kids to fetch me crashed drones, from which I could get the parts.

Hmm...you know, with all the drones that are likely to be occasionally breaking, it would'nt be surprising to see a crew of street kids that constantly roam around trying to find viable parts, to sell for food. Might make for some interesting NPCs.

That said, my magnetic can be made from a standard grenade (you can drop it, and have it stick to pursuing vehicles), some cheap radio-shack magnets, and two coat hangers. A cheap transciever (10$ for 2k baud transmitter) attached to a similar assembly made out of rare-earth magnets from radio shack, some piano wire, a 50-cent 5v regulator from RadioShack, 3 button cells, and a 1$ PIC microcontroller. It would be able to transmit for a few days with no trouble, and would be easily triangulated and seperated from background noise. Connect it to a 40$ GoPhone cell phone (which, incidentally, has GPS built in), and you've got the ability to track your prey.

And spudguns...they're just nasty. The recoil's a problem, though.

Yes, it needs a success test. Not everybody has your tinkering skill or imagination.

Improvised weapons, gadgets, and traps is an area that you really just have to work with the GM on. It's hard to tell how something cobbled together would work without actually building it IRL, so a level of trust, cooperation, and non-munchkin play would be required.

That said, yes, a grenade superglued to a magnet isn't all that different from Ye Olde Sticky Bomb. A relatively simple roll should suffice, one that any character with a few points in industrial mech should have no problem making.

Or, I'm sure there are lots of Anarchist's Knowsofts and matrix files around that your character can use to add dice to the pool (although a critical glitch while working with some devices may lead to an accident...) if you talk the GM into it.

Just be fair, work it out with your GM, and don't be munchy.

Snerk. I wouldn't trust an Anarchist Cookbook further than I could throw my monitor, and my monitor is expensive so I'm sure as heck not throwing it.

At the best, those kinds of documents would be, like, rating 2. If not rating _one_.