You can draw circuit boards onto paper with this pen (video)

When dreaming up that world-changing invention, wouldn’t it be great if you could just sketch out the circuits and have them magically work? That’s the idea behind Circuit Scribe, a ballpoint pen that’s full of quick-drying ink that’ll help you doodle your circuits on notebook paper. Emerging out of research from the University of Illinois, the team is now accepting your cash through Kickstarter to help bring it into the real world. $20 will get you a pen and an LED component, while $30 will buy you a basic kit, complete with plenty of accessories to help you test the systems to their fullest. We imagine it’ll be a big hit with STEM educators as well as hobbyists, but if you’re not yet convinced, check out the video to watch it in action.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Kickstarter

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

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.

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Source: LightUp, Kickstarter

MIT crafts genetic circuits that remember their work through DNA

MIT crafts genetic circuits that remember their work through DNA

It’s easy to find work on gene-based storage; finding genes that will do any of the heavy lifting is another matter. MIT believes it has a genetic circuit that will finally get to work, and then some. In using recombinase enzymes to alter DNA sequences serving as logic gates, researchers have developed a cellular circuit that not only mimics its silicon cousins, but has its own built-in memory. As the gate activation makes permanent changes to a given DNA sequence, any gate actions stay in memory for up to 90 generations — and will hang around even if the cell’s life is cut short. MIT sees its technique as having ultimate uses for areas where longer-term memory is important, such as environmental sensors, but could also see varying output values helping with digital-to-analog converters and other devices where there’s a need for more precision. While there’s no word on imminent plans for real-world use, the development raises the possibility of processors that could skip the traditional memory cache as they pass info down the family tree.

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Via: SciTechDaily

Source: MIT

Athens university prints polymer circuits with lasers, speeds us towards low-cost electronics

University of Athens prints polymer circuits with lasers, speeds us towards lowcost electronics

The dream of ubiquitous technology revolves around cheaper materials, and polymer circuits could help make the dream a reality… if the solvents used to produce the circuits didn’t cause more problems than they cured, that is. The National Technical University of Athens has developed a more exacting technique that, like most good things in science, solves the crisis with lasers. The approach fires a laser at a polymer layer (covered by quartz) to throw some of that polymer on to a receiving layer; by moving the two layers, the scientists can print virtually any 2D circuit without resorting to potentially damaging chemicals. Any leftover worries center mostly around risks of changing the chemical composition as well as the usual need to develop a reliable form of mass production. Any long-term success with laser-printed polymers, however, could lead to more affordable technology as well as more instances of flexible and wearable gear — there might not be much of a downside to ditching the circuit status quo.

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Athens university prints polymer circuits with lasers, speeds us towards low-cost electronics originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Visualized: London Underground circuit map is also a radio

Visualized: London Underground circuit map is also a radio

London has a rich history of underground radio stations, but what if we flipped that, and turned London’s Underground into a radio? Well it’d look like this. The circuit-board radio project is a collaboration between Yuri Suzuki and Masahiko Shindo, and uses Harry Beck’s iconic tube map design. Note the choice of BBC’s White City for the tuner, and Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner for volume control — plus a few other famous names changed for geeky in-joke fun. We love the attention to detail, we just hope it’s not permanently tuned to Capital FM.

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Visualized: London Underground circuit map is also a radio originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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