Time machines provide a fun learning experience, a unique business opportunity, and a contrived way to manipulate your plot arc. Watch out, though — depending on the make and model you choose for your temporal vehicle, they can often be expensive to build and difficult to maintain. See below for several types of time machine, along with assembly instructions when available.

Hot Tub

The mechanism for how a hot tub can become a time machine isn't well-explained. However, if you acquire a hot tub and the chronological mechanism never works, at least you have a hot tub, right? For further instructions view:

Hot tub time machine [videodisc] by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and United Artists present a New Crime production

Remote Control

If you're willing to brave Bed Bath & Beyond's 'Beyond' section and don't already have enough remote controls, a pre-built time machine may be as easy as a trip to the store:

Click [videodisc] by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios present a Happy Madison/Original Film

Lake House

We certainly don't want to see you leave Canton, especially for the summer, but renting a lake house in Wisconsin may be the way to temporal romance:

The lake house [videodisc] by Warner Bros. Pictures ; Vertigo Entertainment ; Village Roadshow Pictures

A New Career

Time travel is often a happy accident rather than a predictable push of a button. If you want to increase your likelihood of being wisked through spacetime, a job in quantum physics is probably your best bet:

Quantum leap. the complete first season [videodisc] by Universal Studios

New Wheels

It's pretty simple, really: just get a DeLorean, build a flux capacitor, assemble the controls and connections, then figure out a way to juice the system with 1.21 Gigawatts of power.

Back to the future [videodisc]: the complete trilogy by Universal and Amblin Entertainment

Go Really Fast

Everyone knows that if you fly around the Sun near warp 10 that your Klingon bird-of-prey will go back in time. What's less obvious is how to procure a reasonably-priced warp-capable vehicle nowadays. Some believe that if we all pitch in, we could build a starship, which would be a good start.

Star trek IV [videodisc]: the voyage home by Paramount Pictures ; a Harve Bennett production ; a Leonard Nimoy film

Star trek [videodisc] by Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment present a Bad Robot production

Find an Island

This one is a bit tricky. If you can find an island and manage to survive on it, there's a possibility that you can harness it to mess with chronology. Be advised that a resistance to the effects of electromagnetism would be helpful in this pursuit.

Lost. The complete first season, Disc 1 [videodisc] by Touchstone Television ; Bad Robot

Ask your Teacher

Depending on the school you attend, your Transfiguration professor may provide you with the necessary equipment on an as-needed basis:

Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban [videodisc] by Warner Bros ; 1492 Pictures ; Heyday Films

Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling ; illustrations by Mary GrandPre

Other

It's complicated.

Doctor Who. The complete first series, Discs 1 & 2 [videodisc] by 2 Entertain ; BBC

Further Reading

How to build a time machine by Paul Davies

Breaking the time barrier: the race to build the first time machine by Jenny Randles

The new time travelers: a journey to the frontiers of physics by David Toomey

Time: a traveler's guide by Clifford A. Pickover

Time travel and warp drives: a scientific guide to shortcuts through time and space by Allen Everett and Thomas Roman

Time travel in Einstein's universe: the physical possibilities of travel through time by J. Richard Gott III