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Rollerball pen turns doodles into working circuits

Rollerball pen turns doodles into working circuits

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circuit scribe
circuit scribe

Good-bye, breadboard. Scientists at the University of Illinois have come up with a conductive, water-based ink that lets you draw working circuits on an ordinary piece of paper. They’ve packaged the product into a rollerball pen, called Circuit Scribe, and if you want to be one of the first to get hold of one, the team is crowdfunding the project on Kickstarter right now.

The Circuit Scribe aims to make building circuits as easy as doodling, and while a single pen will only set you back $20, an extra $10 will net you a pile of other resistors, capacitors, batteries, and switches so that you can start building stuff right away. There’s even a $100 package with dozens of extra components like sound buzzers, photo sensors, and a motor. To be sure, the Circuit Scribe's silver-water-cellulose mixture isn’t the first conductive ink product on the market, but judging from the video above, it looks a lot nicer to work with than some of the alternatives out there.