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Chibitronics Pressure Sensor

30-60 min

Ages 8+

What Will You Make?

Students will use a special pressure-sensitive conductive plastic that becomes more conductive when pressed to create a pressure sensor that can fade an LED both in and out.

What Will You Learn?

You will learn to use a pressure sensor circuit to fade an LED in and out, use a pressure sensor to light colors in sequence and explore other pressure sensor effects, and use interactivity to tell a story.

Start with the Template

Step 1

Stick conductive tape over the gray lines.

Step 2

Fold the top page corner along dotted line and clip your battery in place with a binder clip.

Step 3

Stick an LED sticker over the footprint and fold along the dotted line at the bottom of the page. Your LED will turn on, since you’ve just made a switch!

Step 4

Unfold the switch you just made and cut the black conductive plastic in the shape of the red dotted rectangle.

Step 5

Put the plastic over the dotted rectangle and fold the bottom flap again. Now when you press, the light will become brighter the harder you press – you just made a pressure sensor!

Start with Art

Step 1

Ask students to brainstorm: what different stories could this circuit tell? What kind of meaning will their pressure-sensitive circuit communicate? Building on the initial group brainstorm, ask students to sketch ideas before creating the illustration to go with their circuit.

Step 2

Share the heart card video of an interactive greeting card made using two LEDs and a pressure sensor made from Velostat as an example.

Troubleshooting Tips

  • Check for breaks or tears in the conductive tape path and patch them if needed.

  • Make sure the positive side of the battery is connected to the positive side of the LED, and the negative side of the battery is connected to the negative side of the LED. Students can experiment by turning the battery over.

  • Check for short circuits – places where the positive side of the circuit makes an accidental connection to the negative side of the circuit.

  • Make sure the LED is solidly connected to the conductive tape path. Press down on the LED to test if the connection is secure.

  • Make sure the battery is not out of charge by testing it on a working circuit. If a student has tried all other strategies, give them a fresh battery to try.

  • Other valuable troubleshooting strategies that students can suggest include:

    • asking a classmate for help

    • looking over the instructions again

    • comparing their circuit to a working circuit

    • changing one element at a time

What Is Happening Here?

Background

Pressure-sensitive conductive plastic, sold by the brand names Velostat or Linqstat, is a thin plastic containing conductive carbon particles. This gives it an electrical resistance that changes with pressure. In other words, how well it conducts electricity changes when you press on it. We can use this to make a pressure sensor.

When you are not pressing on the plastic, the conductive particles in the material are spaced farther apart. Electrons cannot flow as well, so the light is dimmer. The harder you press, the closer the conductive particles become and the better the material conducts, so the light shines brighter. 

What Is Next?

Extensions and Adaptations

  • Try sandwiching a piece of the pressure sensitive conductive plastic between the battery and battery flap in any of the circuits students have built so far to see the blink effect become a gradual fade! The same trick works for gaps in switch circuits, creating a more gentle effect. Try moving the conductive plastic piece around different existing circuits. But watch out for short circuits: make sure the conductive plastic does not bridge the + and – of the circuit.

  • Use the pressure sensor circuit to explore the electrical properties of other materials, as in the Circuit Science: Conductors, Resistors, and Insulators activity that follows.

  • Build on pressure sensor effects using the ideas in 6 ways to use a pressure sensor. Students can work in groups to plan out how to explore one of the techniques, and then request the materials needed for their project.

Chibitronics Educators Guide

Chibitronics Paper Circuits STEAM Educator’s Guide is a FREE comprehensive guide to STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art and Math) learning with paper circuits!

This 185-page guide includes:

  • Overview and history of paper circuits, including materials, techniques and troubleshooting tips

  • Suggested learning standards

  • Resources on equitable teaching and collaboration in the classroom

  • 7 detailed lesson sequences based on the Circuit Sticker Sketchbook in Part 1 Lessons

  • 12 detailed lesson sequences based on Love to Code in Part 2 Lessons

  • 6 Featured Projects: cross-curricular adaptable project inspirations

  • Printable templates for each lesson sequence

Throughout the guide, Chibitronics celebrates artists, educators, art techniques, and projects to showcase inspiring work in action. The arts are interwoven into each activity; STEM becomes a medium to ask and explore big questions about ourselves and the world, and nurture new forms of creativity!

Materials:

See More Projects in these topics:

Arts & Crafts Electronics Paper Crafts STEM or STEAM

See More Projects from these themes:

Art/Craft Studio Carnival/Theme Park The Shop (Makerspace)
Chibitronics
Chibitronics blends circuit building and programming with arts and crafts. We make circuit stickers and other tools for educators, artists and crafters so everyone can create and design their own expressive electronics.
Print Project

Maker Camp Project Standards

Based on NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)

National Core Arts Standards

The National Core Arts Standards are a process that guides educators in providing a unified quality arts education for students in Pre-K through high school. These standards provide goals for Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts with cross-cutting anchors in Creating, Performing, Responding, and Connecting through art. The Anchor Standards include:
  1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
  2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
  3. Refine and complete artistic work.
  4. Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
  5. Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation.
  6. Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
  7. Perceive and analyze artistic work.
  8. Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
  9. Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.
  10. Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
  11. Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
Please visit the website for specific details on how each anchor applies to each discipline.

NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards)

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards. Learn more.

Forces and Motion

  • 3-PS2-3. Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.
  • HS-PS4-5. Communicate technical information about how some technological devices use the principles of wave behavior and wave interactions with matter to transmit and capture information and energy.

National Core Arts Standards

The National Core Arts Standards are a process that guides educators in providing a unified quality arts education for students in Pre-K through high school. Also see Standards with cross-cutting anchors in Creating, Performing, Responding, and Connecting through art for Visual Arts.

ISTE Standards (International Society for Technology in Education)

The ISTE Standards provide the competencies for learning, teaching and leading in the digital age, providing a comprehensive roadmap for the effective use of technology in schools worldwide.

1.1 Empowered Learner

  • Summary: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.
  • 1.1.a Students articulate and set personal learning goals, develop strategies leveraging technology to achieve them and reflect on the learning process itself to improve learning outcomes.
  • 1.1.b Students build networks and customize their learning environments in ways that support the learning process.
  • 1.1.c Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
  • 1.1.d Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.

1.2 Digital Citizen

  • Summary: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
  • 1.2.a Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world.
  • 1.2.b Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
  • 1.2.c Students demonstrate an understanding of and respect for the rights and obligations of using and sharing intellectual property.
  • 1.2.d Students manage their personal data to maintain digital privacy and security and are aware of data-collection technology used to track their navigation online.

1.3 Knowledge Constructor

  • Summary: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
  • 1.3.a Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
  • 1.3.b Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.
  • 1.3.c Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
  • 1.3.d Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

1.4 Innovative Designer

  • Summary: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
  • 1.4.a Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
  • 1.4.b Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that considers design constraints and calculated risks.
  • 1.4.c Students develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
  • 1.4.d Students exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.

1.5 Computational Thinker

  • Summary: Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.
  • 1.5.a Students formulate problem definitions suited for technology-assisted methods such as data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking in exploring and finding solutions.
  • 1.5.b Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making.
  • 1.5.c Students break problems into component parts, extract key information, and develop descriptive models to understand complex systems or facilitate problem-solving.
  • 1.5.d Students understand how automation works and use algorithmic thinking to develop a sequence of steps to create and test automated solutions.

NGSS MS.Engineering Design

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards.
  • MS-ETS1-1. Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
  • MS-ETS1-2. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
  • MS-ETS1-3. Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
  • MS-ETS1-4. Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
For additional information on using content standards with our projects please visit the Maker Camp Playbook.

NGSS HS.Engineering Design

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards.
  • HS-ETS1-1. Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
  • HS-ETS1-2. Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
  • HS-ETS1-3. Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
  • HS-ETS1-4. Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
For additional information on using content standards with our projects please visit the Maker Camp Playbook.

NGSS 3-5.Engineering Design

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are K–12 science content standards.
  • 3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
  • 3-5-ETS1-2. Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
  • 3-5-ETS1-3. Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.
For additional information on using content standards with our projects please visit the Maker Camp Playbook.
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