In our recent posts we have seen the most innovative eco-friendly marketing campaigns. The WaterLess Levi’s jeans that uses the minimum amount of water in their manufacturing process, or the newest McDonald’s Stockholm “exchange-recycled-cans- for-free-burgers” campaign, or another brilliant way to adhere to naked greener Coke cans.
The efforts to confront some of the world’s greatest challenges, however, do not exclusively take place in business – but also in university education. The HCIL (Human-Computer Interaction Lab) at the University of Maryland designed and created an interactive experience that combines bits and atoms, or virtual and physical: StarryNight.
Primarily designed as an educational tool for kids, StarryNight is a project that emphasizes the Maker/DIY culture by which the kids learn the basics about astronomy and electronic circuits “by doing” in a social environment. The way StarryNight works is very simple, basic materials like copper tape, coin cells, LED lights, copper foil and some black paper are put together to make stars shine and shape different constellations. One big huge circuit which has all the stars (blue LEDs) is connected in parallel in this open and closed circuit, where each of the four constellations has a separate circuit with green LEDs to show the edges of the constellations.
This DIY paper circuit board is great to encourage invention and constructive learning, and more importantly, it does not require big bucks to be built unlike the very luxury $5700 mechanical Caran d’Ache’s Caelograph pen that charts the stars and constellations at any given time and on any date as a result of miniaturization, ingenious engineering and talent of an astronomer.
So if you wish to build a StarryNight for inexpensive collection of material, you will need:
- Lots of Copper Tape
- About six 3V coin cells
- About 60 LEDs
- Copper Foil (since its conductive both sides, it was used to activate switches)
- Soldering Iron
Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of copper rivets in varying sizes and forms, widely used in the manufacturing of art sculptures such as the Water<Less jeans in London. To find out more about us, please visit our Website, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba, EC21 and Tradekey.
#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe
Source and pictures: slideee.com, instructables.com, trendhunter.com, telegraph.co.uk
Camilla G.//SMC Editor
Shanghai Metal Corporation 