Play Dough Circuitry

October 4, 2010 12:56 PM

Squishy Circuits: recipes for making insulating and conductive modeling doughs, for fun electronics projects (via)
posted by Ery (7 comments total)

Very cool. Sort of reminds me of the Lily Pad, which is an Arduino-based system that allows you to build "soft circuits" with conductive thread and specially designed buttons and LED's and such.
posted by DMan at 12:59 PM on October 4, 2010

Those will get through airport security way easier than breadboard projects, too!
posted by whatnotever at 1:12 PM on October 4, 2010

Those will get through airport security way easier than breadboard projects, too!

Are you NUTZ? the first thing I thought of when I saw those was Plastic C4 or some such.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 1:52 PM on October 4, 2010

Yeah, clay with wires sticking out of it will get you in even more trouble than 8 hotdogs taped to an alarm clock would.
posted by aubilenon at 1:57 PM on October 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

I may just be being dumb - but what in that dough recipe is making it especially conductive? I mean, all dough has water in it...
posted by sawdustbear at 3:25 PM on October 4, 2010

It's the ions that make water conductive. In this case, the conductive dough has salt added, while the non-conductive dough does not.
posted by Ery at 3:32 PM on October 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ery: The nonconductive dough is mostly oil whereas the conductive dough is mostly water. That's why they say they don't mix, in one of the videos.
posted by aubilenon at 11:44 PM on October 6, 2010