In the middle of October we were asked to run a 5-day workshop with 20 students from the Royal College of Art's Innovation Design Engineering Program. We split the students up into teams of 3, giving them each a few jars of Bare Paint. The results were fantastic. This group focused on creating a series of variable resistors and capacitors, eventually using them as a high-pass audio filter (clever!). The video above shows the variable resistors in action as strain gauges, we'll be posting video (and sound) of the audio filtering soon.

 

To create the variable resistors, the students sandwiched wet Bare Paint between two layers of silicone and wires were inserted on either end. Casting the silicone and trapping the paint was not as straightorward as it sounds, and it took quite a few iterations before they had a reliable resistor which would vary predictably when deformed.

 

Stretching the resistor increases its resistance dramatically, here it was being measured by the Arduino, but when used as a high-pass audio filter, it was wired directly in line with a pair of headphones. Varying the resistance (stretching the object) changed the cutoff frequency. 

 

Capacitor number one. More specifically it would be a Leyden Jar. The jar is still half full of Bare Paint and a layer of Bare Paint is painted on the outside of the jar. Because our jars are plastic, the two layers of paint are insulated, so you can create a difference in charge between them. Worked pretty well, but a second iteration was in order.

 

This capacitor was made using two layers of Bare Paint and an insulating layer of silicone (all of this is squished between the cardboard). This one worked much better and when wired in line with the variable resistor, created a cool analog high-pass audio filter!