Paper Circuits and Bibliocircuitry

Arts and Crafts Meets Electricity

 

 

4:00 - 5:30pm | Feb. 7, 2020

Tiffany Chan, UVic Libraries

Introductions

  • Developer/Analyst (Digital Scholarship)
  • Office in the Digital Scholarship Commons, "DSC"
  • Before that: MA in English Literature at UVic

Plan for Today

  • Introductions
  • Example Projects
  • Hands-on exercises

More introductions!

(for a few minutes)

Overview

  • Paper circuit & bibliocircuitry: definitions and examples
  • Simple hands-on activity
  • More electronics concepts
  • Independent activities

What is a paper circuit?

  • What does or can it look like?
  • Why would I use it?

Example: Electronic Popables

An interactive electronic pop-up book by Dr. Jie Qi, Leah Buckley

What is a paper circuit?

What does it need to have?

  • A power supply 
  • A continuous circuit made from "traces"
  • Sensors and/or actuators (optional)
  • A computer (optional)

Traces

Conductive materials embedded in/onto paper.

They make up your circuit: the path that electricity travels.

Sensors

  • pressure
  • touch/capacitance
  • light
  • sound
  • motion

Sensors, Actuators & Computers

Actuators

  • LEDs (lights)
  • speakers
  • motors
  • shape memory alloys

Computers

  • Makey Makey
  • Arduino

Computer

Sensors

Actuators

from "Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday" by Charity Hancock, Clifford Hichar, Carlea Holl-Jensen, Kari Kraus, Cameron Mozafari, and Kathryn Skutline

Bibliocircuitry

from "Bibliocircuitry and the Design of the Alien Everyday" by Charity Hancock, Clifford Hichar, Carlea Holl-Jensen, Kari Kraus, Cameron Mozafari, and Kathryn Skutline

"Like anatomical illustrations that reveal inner tissues and organs, [bibliocircuitry] permit[s] us to see the unseen: the circuitry of books that combine pulp and silicon, but also the everyday material and structural affordances of books, which are so engrained in the culture that they go habitually unnoticed."

Hello world!

Making a simple circuit

Troubleshooting & the Multimeter

Troubleshooting

Things to try:

  • power source connected?
  • corners folded properly?
  • LED pins are oriented the right way ( + vs. – ) ?
  • there are gaps in the tape between LED pins?

Conductivity and Resistance

  • How do I know if something is conductive?
  • How do I know which side of an LED is positive (the anode) and which is negative (the cathode)?
  • How can I measure how conductive something is?
    • We measure its inverse, resistance, in ohms ( Ω )

Low resistance

High conductivity

High resistance

Low conductivity

wires, solder, copper tape

conductive paint or ink

 

people, fruit, water

silver

carbon

graphite

nickel

vinegar

Visualizing Resistance

Computers: Makey Makey

Easy to learn & made to work with high resistance materials

Makey Makey: Examples

Paper Drum Kit

Do I need code / programming?

It depends...

  • Is/are your actuators only on or off?
  • Do you need to make decisions dynamically based on (sensor) input?
  • How complex is the circuit?
  • Easy learning curve: Makey Makey
  • Steep learning curve: Arduino

Bleep bloop?

Chibitronics Stickers

chibitronics.com

What can I make today?

  1. Light up Valentine card
  2. Paper pop-up circuits
  3. RGB LED slider
  4. Paper drum kit ? (in pairs)

Tiffany Chan | Email: tjychan@uvic.ca

Cheatsheet & Resources

DSC workshop

  • Feb. 14, 10:30 - 12:00 | Introduction to Computing Electronics with Arduino
  • go to oac.uvic.ca/dsc > Events and Workshops > Register Here

How to place a button

Legend for pop-up templates

Cut a slit along this line

Cut out

Fold here

Place copper tape here

Made with Slides.com