Posted on Kickstarter.com | By Electroninks Incorporated
We love paper-based electronics & created DIY project kits using the Circuit Scribe conductive ink pen to help creativity take flight!
We are excited to bring the next generation Circuit Scribe products back to the Kickstarter community. Our backers wowed us with so many creative applications of the Circuit Scribe pen, and these were the inspiration for our new DIY kits. Welcome to the world of DIY paper electronics!
What’s Circuit Scribe?
Circuit Scribe is the original conductive ink rollerball pen. With a non-toxic, highly conductive, silver and water based ink, you can draw your own circuits by hand. Our customers have used the pen for education, prototyping, and electronic art. The educational kits come with magnetic component modules that snap onto the circuit, allowing you to create fun electronic paper crafts using a range of basic to advanced circuit concepts.
Apply What You Learned
The new DIY kits are a continuation of our mission to make learning about electricity fun and engaging, but you don’t need the educational kits to create with the DIY kits!
Our original kits emphasized education by teaching basic circuitry principles, while our new kits emphasize application by allowing you to apply those concepts to DIY projects, using the classic Circuit Scribe pen to draw the connections. The chart below shows how these fundamental concepts are applied to tangible projects that are useful (or just fun!) in your daily life.
The Drone Kit
This kit really flies off the page! Create a 4-propeller drone using cardboard and the Circuit Scribe conductive ink pen. The DIY Drone packaging will have perforated sections you can punch for perfectly proportioned structure, then draw the electrical connections, add the 4 propeller clamps and the motor to the body and you’ve made a remote control drone. This kit can be reconfigured to change the drone’s size or even turn it into a flying paper airplane.
If you’re already a fan of drones or quadcopters, try your hand at creating one out of paper!
The Calculator Kit
We partnered with Dr. Saar Drimer of Boldport for the artful design of the DIY Calculator kit. This kit lets you design your own calculator key pad on paper. In addition to a calculator module & Circuit Scribe pen, the kit includes an easy to read guidebook that teaches you about touch sensors. Follow our outline when creating your calculator or get wild & crazy by drawing your own unique touch pads.
We want our community to have endless opportunities to be creative with the kit so we’re working on a new V2 prototype that will be solar powered (no pesky batteries or wires!) and have a unique paper-clip design that will allow you to move from notebook to planner to desktop!
The LiteWing Kit
Now your Circuit Scribe creations can move using the maple seed as inspiration. Your version of this “helicopter seed” spins to the ground with an LED on its wing and a coin cell battery on the weighted base. Simply connect the battery to the LED with your included Circuit Scribe pen and toss in the air.
This kit is perfect for anyone who knows their circuit basics!
Kit Contents
All of our kits will come with everything you need in the box! A Circuit Scribe pen to complete the circuits, the appropriate modules & supplies, plus an instructional guidebook to ensure the project will come to life.
Customize and Share your work
Because your DIY creations are made out of conductive ink and paper, they are easy to customize. Get artsy with colored pencils and pens, or add your own paper engineering elements with custom folds. You’ll be able to find detailed instructions and visual aides for our brand new kits on sketch.circuitscribe.com. Our platform also lets you upload your work and inspire other makers.
Why We Need Kickstarter
These brand new kits are a departure from our original color-coded magnetic modules, using a few new innovative ways to attach components to paper. While it’s exciting to introduce some new methods for attaching components to paper, we need to open brand new product tooling and create new protocols for assembly. That’s why we’re coming full circle and asking you, the Kickstarter community, to help make this possible!
Drone: has a flex board based hub, plus new app for flying
Calculator: uses a patent-pending thin PCB clip-on design
LiteWing: components are pre-attached to the paper, and precisely weighted for peak aerodynamic action
We also want your input to help us figure out what the final designs will look like. All of the products that you see in our campaign are functional prototypes; we’ll keep everyone up to date on our design evolution and take your feedback into account.
Backer Rewards
We have some great rewards for our backers! All funding levels come with everything you need right out of the box, including instructions. See the sidebar for details! Our highest backing level – $1500 – comes with our maker space oriented kit, represented below. You’ll get all of our available products in one handy carrying case, plus you’ll have access to some of our newest offerings such as resistor pens!
Meet Circuit Scribe
It all started with an idea, some conductive ink research, and the help of over 12,000 backers on Kickstarter!
We now have a close-knit team of 5 working on the Circuit Scribe kits. We bring together expertise in engineering, STEM education, marketing, and product manufacturing to give you the best products possible. We’re also obsessed with tinkering and having fun with electronics!
Customer Feedback
Since 2014, we have received some incredible feedback from our community! We’re happy to have contributed to helping kids and adults, alike, learn about the circuits that run our modern world.
| “They are so much fun and bring electronics concepts into a playful learning experience.” -Amazon review
| “My son is 8 years old and likes this pack so much…After a few days, his workbook was full of creative ideas.” -Amazon review
Not only have our customers shown support, they have made some pretty creative projects that inspired us to design our new line of DIY kits. Check out some of their social media posts below, and join in the fun using #circuitscribe.
Risks and challenges
While our manufacturing of the pen and magnetic modules is running smoothly, these new DIY kits are an entirely new manufacturing process. Risks are minimal, as we have fulfilled our original Kickstarter campaign and grown into a company that ships to customers across the world. Once backed, the main risk would be a delayed ship time due to unforeseen manufacturing delays.
