openMaterials

The OpenStructures project is an open and modular construction system where everyone designs for everyone on the basis of one shared geometrical grid: It is an ongoing experiment that wants to find out what happens if people design objects according to a shared modular grid, a common open standard that stimulates the exchange of parts, components, [...]

This Sunday altlab is holding its first Soft Circuits Open Lab at the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon (FBAUL - Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa). There is no predefined structure for the event. We will meet for the course of one day with the purposes of sharing knowledge, experimenting freely, advancing on-going projects, [...]

More interesting news from Stanford University’s research on carbon nanotubes, via a Printed Electronics World article: Ordinary textiles could be transformed into batteries that hold up to three times more energy than a mobile phone battery, by simply dipping them into nanoparticle-infused ink. Conventional batteries are made by coating metallic foil in a particle slurry and [...]

Researchers at Stanford University seem to have done it again. This time, a paper titled “Highly Conductive Paper for Energy Storage Devices,” published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes a technique for using ordinary paper and coating it with a special ink, composed of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, to create [...]

Some things are so simple we don’t even think about writing them down. We assume everyone knows them. Well, that may often be true, but not always. The materials 101 series is our attempt at systematizing, through a series of thematic blog posts, some basic materials-related knowledge that is ‘out there.’ The series will thus provide [...]

I first heard about the Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art (FiiWA) from Tracy Gromek and Marcus Pingel at FashionCamp NYC 2009, where they discussed the challenges involved in creating safe, sturdy and adequate sporting equipment for visually impaired persons. Here’s a description of their creative and constructive project: FiiWA (Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art) is a [...]