Wearable Sensors On Your Skin

An international team at Penn State led by [Larry Cheng] made a breakthrough in printing sensors directly on skin without heat. The breakthrough here is the development of a room-temperature sintering technique. Typical sintering of copper happens at 300 C, and can be further lowered to 100 C by adding nanoparticles. But even 100 C is too hot, since skin starts to burn at around 40 C.

You can obtain their journal article if you want the details, but basically their technique combines the ingredients in peelable face masks and eggshells. With this printed circuit is applied to the skin, the sintering process only requires a hair dryer on the cool setting, and results can bend and fold without breaking the connections. A hot shower will remove the circuit without damaging the circuit or your skin. [Larry] says the circuits can be recycled.

They are using these sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, blood oxygen levels, and heart performance indicators. They’ve even linked these various on-body sensors with a WiFi network for ease of monitoring. After reading this report, we’re left wondering, if the sensor is directly on your skin, can it be really called wearable?

We’ve written about printable inks before, but for printed circuit board applications.  We can’t help but wonder if this technology would help solve some problems inherent in that technology, as well. Thanks to [Qes] for the tip.

3D Printing Skin Or Maybe A Dermal Regenerator

In space — at least on Star Trek — no one can hear you apply a band-aid. That’s too low tech. When a Star Fleet officer gets an ouchie, the real or holographic doctor waves a dermal regenerator over the afflicted area, and new skin magically appears. Science fiction, huh? Maybe not. A group of scientists from Canada recently published a paper on a handheld instrument for depositing “skin precursor sheets” over full-thickness burns. The paper is behind a paywall and if you don’t know how to get it or don’t want to get it, you can see a video from the University of Toronto, below.

Although they use the term 3D printing, the device is more like a paint roller. Several substances merge together in the print head and lay down on the burn in broad stripes.

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Tricked-Out Tablet Becomes Workbench Tool

The workbench of the typical electronics hobbyist today would probably be largely recognizable by Heathkit builders back in the 60s and 70s. But where the techs and tinkerers of yesteryear would have had a real dead-tree SAMS Photofact schematic spread out on the bench, today you’ll get more use out of a flat-screen display for data sheets and schematics, and this handy shop Frankentablet might be just the thing to build.

Tablets like the older Nexus 9 that [enginoor] used as the basis for this build have a little bit of a form-factor problem because unlike a laptop, a tablet isn’t very good at standing up on its own. To fix that, they found a suitable silicone skin for the Nexus, and with some silicone adhesive began bedazzling the back of the tablet. A bendy tripod intended for phones was added, and with the tablet able to stand on its own they maximized the USB port with a right angle adapter and a hub. Now the tablet has a USB drive, a mouse, and a keyboard, ready for perusing data sheets online. And hackers of a certain age will appreciate the eyeball-enhancing potential of the attached USB microscope.

[enginoor]’s bench tablet is great, but we’ve seen full-fledged bench PCs before too. Take your pick — wall mounted and floating, or built right into the workbench.

Thanks to [ccvi] for the tip.

Simple Game Boy IPhone Mod Is Simple

We’ve featured the work of [Modpurist] before, but his latest hack is wonderful in its simplicity. He wanted to create a more authentic Game Boy feel on his iPhone, so he printed out and stuck a skin on the front that makes it look like a Game Boy. Or rather, a Phone Boy, as the form factor is a bit different.

By measuring out the on-screen buttons and using light photo paper, he was able to have buttons on the skin as well: the touch screen still works through it.  You can download his printable templates… and the finishing touch is a similar print for the back of the phone to gives that genuine Game Boy feel. Okay, feel is not the right term since the classic d-pad and red buttons are still just capacitive and have no throw. But this is a clever step in a fun direction.

Check out his other hacks while you are at it, including the Game Boy Fridge.

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Build Your Own Sensor Skin

Scientific research, especially in the area of robotics, often leverages cutting-edge technology. Labs filled with the latest measurement and fabrication gear are unleashed on the really tough problems, like how to simulate the exquisite sensing abilities of human skin. One lab doing work in this area has taken a different approach, though, by building multi-functional sensors arrays from paper.

A group from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, led by [Muhammad M. Hussain], has published a fascinating paper that’s a tour de force of getting a lot done with nothing. Common household items, like Post-It notes, kitchen sponges, tissue paper, and tin foil, are used to form the basis of what they call “paper skin”. Fabrication techniques – scissors and tape – are ridiculously simple and accessible to anyone who made it through kindergarten.

They do turn to a Circuit Scribe pen for some of their sensors, but even this nod to high technology is well within their stated goal of making it possible for anyone to fabricate sensors at home. The paper goes into great detail about how the sensors are made, how they interact, and how they are interfaced. It’s worth a read to see what you can accomplish with scraps.

For another low-tech paper-based sensor, check out this capacitive touch sensor keyboard.

Thanks for the tip, [Mattias]

Artificial Skin Lets Robots Feel

BioTac Artificial Skin Technology is sure to be a storm with Robotics Designers. Giving them the opportunity to add a third sense to there robotic marvels. Now they can have the sense of touch to go along with existing technologies of sight and of sound.  Thanks to the technology coming out of the University of Southern California making this possible.

They have chosen to call their sensor BioTac, which is a new type of tactile sensor designed to mimic the human fingertip with its soft flexible skin. The sensor makes it possible to identify different types of texture by analyzing the vibrations produced as the sensor brushes over materials. This sensor is also capable of measuring pressure applied and  ambient temperature around the finger tip, expect to see this technology in next gen prosthetics. Let us know your thoughts on it.

[via technabob]
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Morphing Robot Demonstrated At IROS

morphing-robot

A morphing robot was demonstrated at the IROS conference this week. This orb has no rigid structure but uses some type of “inflation” system for locomotion. This robot concept is offered up by the iRobot company as part of a DARPA initiative they’re working on. The “inflation” is really a substance in the skin that can be converted from a liquid-like state to a solid-like one. They call this “The Jamming Concept” and give a layman’s explanation in the video we’ve embedded after the break.

When moving, this white ball is a churning, turning, bulging mass of terror. The just-about-to-hatch pods from Alien, or perhaps something from Doom 3 come to mind. The hexapod from IROS that we covered yesterday was amazing, but this really creeps us out. What’s more, this is footage from the iRobot prototypes of a year ago.  The newer stuff can do much more, like having several of these things glob together into one unit.

We’re glad that [DarwinSurvior] sent us the tip on this one, but now we’re not going to be able to sleep at night.

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