openMaterials

University of Illinois researchers explain how they make their conductive ink on this step-by-step tutorial. (via Boing Boing)

The Resistor JelTone is an edible toy piano created by NYC Resistor members Ranjit Bhatnagar, Astrida Valigorsky, Mimi Hui and myself for the Jello Mold Competition. As part of our experiments we realized that jello and fruit, which contain a lot of water, are conductive. Embedded in each jello/fruit key is a sterling silver pin (food [...]

Jie Qi, from MIT’s High-Low Tech group, posted a couple really nice tutorials on how to combine paper, electronics and smart materials to create beautiful objects. The LED dragon kite: http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1414 SMA origami crane: http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1448

As the name indicates, electrotextiles are textiles with electrical properties. They’re mostly used for electromagnetic shielding, anti-static and heating purposes, and also for soft circuits: electric circuits or sensors made out of a combination of special fabrics, threads, yarns and electronic components. :: conductive fabrics :: conductive threads & yarns :: special electrotextiles :: related materials :: starter kit :: electrotextiles [...]

MAKING STUFF: Stronger, Smaller Cleaner, Smarter is a four-part PBS television series focusing on materials science: While reports on “smart materials” or “bionic humans” are familiar enough from TV news and magazine shows, Making Stuff will be the first documentary to provide the basic science behind these and many other technology breakthroughs. Each of the four [...]

The first edition of Botacon took place last weekend in Brooklyn. The lineup of speakers was impressive and made for one of the best conferences I’ve ever attended. But one materials-related presentation stood out. Mr. Kim and John Sarik gave a talk titled “MakerBot Printable Transistors and OLEDs or I want to be Jeri Ellsworth [...]