Tag Archives: circuits

Electric Paint Pen With Conductive Ink Could Teach You Basics About Circuits

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electric-paint-pen

This is a pen with a special ink that when dry, will conduct electricity. Meaning you can literally draw some basic circuits on a piece of cardboard and they’ll work. Connect them to some resistors, or LEDs or whatever else elements go into a circuit and teach yourself or a young one the fundamentals. The surface resistivity is 55 Ω/Sq @ 50 microns, if that has any meaning to you, and you should probably not use it with voltages above 12V. It’ll work on just about any surface except skin, and maybe metal and will set you back all of $12 or $19 for two.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Technabob ]

Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor

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circuit hairbrush Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor
Geeks aren’t really known for their hygiene but for those special occasions that call for a neat mane, this is how they do it. With an Integrated Circuit Hairbrush Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor you can groom yourself in the computer age. This circuit has enough computing power to…well actually it has none because it’s a five inch long plastic hairbrush.
integrated circuit hairbrush Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor
If you dreamed of the day when computers would be doing your daily grooming, that day has arrived- sort of. More like you can groom yourself with a computer. Or something like that. This circuit won’t actually do any computations for you but you will look damn good not doing them.

buy now Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor

Brush Your Hair with a Microprocessor

LightUp electronic blocks and AR app teaches kids circuitry basics (hands-on)

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LightUp electronics building blocks and augmentedreality app teaches kids circuitry basics handson

There are plenty of kits out there designed to help kids learn the ins and outs of electronics, but LightUp hopes to stand out from the crowd with not just easy-to-use building blocks but an accompanying augmented reality app as well. From resistors and LED modules to light sensors, each block represents a real component that can be attached to each other via magnetic connectors, hopefully creating a circuit in the process. LightUp even offers an Arduino-compatible microcontroller block to help kids start coding -- clip the programming wand to the block, hook it up to your computer, and away you go.

What really sets LightUp apart is the aforementioned AR app. Simply snap a picture of your circuit, and the software will let you know what's wrong with it if there's a mistake. If everything's working, it'll display an electrical flow animation atop the picture, showing kids the magic of electricity. We had a go at creating a circuit ourselves, and were delighted at how easy it was. The connectors fit in either direction, and can be attached and reattached with ease. We also saw a brief demo of the prototype application, and sure enough, it showed us when an LED block was placed backwards with an error message -- you can see it in action in the video below.

Gallery: LightUp hands-on

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Source: LightUp, Kickstarter

Bio-chemical circuits may make you a man of a machine

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Bio-chemical circuits may make you a man of a machine

You'd be more than forgiven for not knowing who Klas Tybrandt is. The doctoral student at Linköping University is hardly a household name, but his latest creation may garner him some serious attention. The Swedish scientist has combined special transistors he developed into an integrated circuit capable of transmitting positive and negative ions as well as biomolecules. The advantage here is that, instead of simply controlling electronics, the circuits carry chemicals which can have a variety of functions, such as acetylcholine which the human body uses to transmit signals between cells. Implantable circuits that traffic in neurotransmitters instead of electrical voltages could be a key step in taking making our cyborg dreams a reality. We're already counting down the days till we're more machine than man.

Bio-chemical circuits may make you a man of a machine originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 May 2012 06:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung pushes graphene one step closer to silicon supremacy

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Samsung pushes graphene one step closer to silicon-supremacy

Graphene has long-held notions of grandeur over its current silicon overlord, but a few practical issues have always kept its takeover bid grounded. Samsung, however, thinks it's cracked at least one of those -- graphene's inability to switch off current. Previous attempts to use graphene as a transistor have involved converting it to a semi-conductor, but this also reduces its electron mobility, negating much of the benefit. Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology has created a graphene-silicon "Schottky barrier" that brings graphene this much-needed current-killing ability, without losing its electron-shuffling potential. The research also explored potential logic device applications based on the same technology. So, does this mean we'll finally get our flea-sized super computer implant? Maybe, not just yet, but the wheels have certainly been oiled.

Continue reading Samsung pushes graphene one step closer to silicon supremacy

Samsung pushes graphene one step closer to silicon supremacy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 04:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New material brings semiconducting to the graphene party

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New material brings semiconducting to the graphene party

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have cooked up a new graphene-based material that could provide a speed boost for all electronics. We've seen the carbon allotrope turn up in circuitry and transistors before, but the new chemical modification -- graphene monoxide -- is said to be easier to scale up, and most importantly is semiconducting, unlike the insulating or conducting forms that have preceded it. This also means graphene can now provide the triad of electrical conductivity characteristics. The scientists were honest enough to admit the discovery was as much by chance as design, with it coming to light while investigating another material containing carbon nanotubes and tin oxide. We're sure they're not the first to make a discovery this way, we just haven't had time to check the notes to be sure of it.

New material brings semiconducting to the graphene party originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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