Circuit Stickers: Peel-and-Stick Construction of Interactive Electronic Prototypes

  • Steve Hodges ,
  • ,
  • Nicholas Chen ,
  • Tushar Chugh ,
  • Jie Qi ,
  • Diana Nowacka ,
  • Yoshihiro Kawahara

Proceedings of CHI 2014 |

We present a novel approach to the construction of elec-tronic prototypes which can support a variety of interactive devices. Our technique, which we call circuit stickers, in-volves adhering physical interface elements such as LEDs, sounders, buttons and sensors onto a cheap and easy-to-make substrate which provides electrical connectivity. This assembly may include control electronics and a battery for standalone operation, or it can be interfaced to a microcon-troller or PC. In this paper we illustrate different points in the design space and demonstrate the technical feasibility of our approach. We have found circuit stickers to be versatile and low-cost, supporting quick and easy construction of physically flexible interactive prototypes. Building extra copies of a device is straightforward. We believe this technology has potential for design exploration, research prototyping, education and for hobbyist projects.

Circuit Stickers Instructional Video

Circuit Stickers Instructional Video

Devices and Networking Summit – Demo 2, Circuit Stickers and Conductive Nanoparticle Ink

Steve Hodges, Microsoft Research and Yoshihiro Kawahara, University of Tokyo Circuit stickers let you build electronic prototypes by sticking components like LEDs, sensors and logic onto a substrate which wires them together. We use paper and conductive silver nanoparticle ink to make this wiring layer—it’s cheap and easy to create by using a felt pen or a domestic inkjet printer. The technology has potential for design exploration, research prototyping, education, and hobbyist projects.

Circuit Stickers

Circuit stickers let you build electronic prototypes by sticking components like LEDs, sensors and logic onto a substrate which wires them together. We use paper and conductive silver nanoparticle ink to make this wiring layer – it’s cheap and easy to create using a felt pen or a domestic inkjet printer. The technology has potential for design exploration, research prototyping, education and hobbyist projects. This work started as a collaboration between researchers at the University of Tokyo, MIT and Microsoft Research.

Printed circuits demo at Maker Faire NYC 2013

In this video Steve Hodges briefly describes how it's possible to print your own electric circuits on paper at home and gives an example of a 3D printed flashlight built using this technology. This was one of many demos from Microsoft at Maker Faire 2013 in NYC.