openMaterials

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

This is from quite some time ago, but a beautiful artwork from Philip Beesley called Hylozoic Soil which I saw at VIDA 11.0 last year. I just love the way he’s used nitinol in the work-

Teaching Resources at Middlesex University (MUTR) is a UK-based online store with a mission to support technology teachers. They provide wonderful materials at affordable prices: from expancel, carbon nanotubes, SMAs, SMPs, photochromic and thermocromic materials, paper-making sets, to motors, solar panels, electronic components, as well as traditional materials such as paper, wood, and metal - [...]

Greg Saul and Mark D. Gross describe their paper devices as “small paper interactive objects that use nitinol shape-memory alloy wire for actuation, gold leaf printed circuits, embedded microchips for control, and paper outer shells for form and structure.” Their gold leaf circuits applied directly on the paper allow for a light weight, beautiful, and [...]