By Andrew Liszewski
It’s definitely not the kind of homemade toy you’ll want to bring along to entertain your kids on a long flight (I’ll leave it up to your imaginations how that would play out at the airport) but if you’ve been trying to lure them away from video games for something a bit more educational, this looks like it could do the trick. Squishy Circuits was developed at the University of St. Thomas by undergraduates Samuel Johnson and AnnMarie Thomas, and basically uses a couple of special ‘Play-Doh’ recipes allowing the dough to serve as either a conductor or an insulator. You’ll need a battery pack and some electrical powered doohickeys (like a motor or LEDs) to show that the circuits are indeed working, but otherwise it’s all up to the dough itself to teach and amaze.
The recipes for both the conductive and insulating dough can be found here, and hopefully Hasbro sees this idea and comes out with a circuits Play-Doh set of their own that’s more educational than making wacky hairdos or inedible burgers.
[ Squishy Circuits ] VIA [ CNET ]
