Technology

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

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We haven’t heard too much from Circuit Girl, aka geek superheroine Jeri Ellsworth, in awhile. We’ve been waiting for some new clips from FMCG to show up on YouTube. In the above new segments, Jeri experiments with creating conductive glass using stannous chloride and heat, and with dying rubber parts with Rit dye to get them the color you want for your project.

Fat Man and Circuit Girl

14 thoughts on “Circuit Girl fights resistance with homemade conductive glass”

  1. I have seen these 2 crop up a lot on Make and every time I have the same question.
    What does the guy actually do? He brings nothing to the videos apart from silly questions and lame comments.

    Perhaps circuit girl should streamline this operation a bit.

    Reply

  2. On the subject of dying plastic, there is a lot of good information to by found on yo-yo modification websites. We went through a big phase of experimentation starting around 2001, and a lot of that info is online.
    Some of the things we figured out:
    Templating: for multicolored effects, you can use a glue or wax for “hard” lines or use liquid soap or oils for “soft” lines.
    Acetone: Using a bit of acetone can help dye more difficult plastics by breaking down the surface. Of course you want to be very conservative when using this technique.
    Vinegar: As with dying fabrics, a vinegar bath can help set the dye once it’s on the plastic.

    Here are some yo-yo dying links:
    http://www.themodsquad.org/cosmetic.php#dye
    http://www.yo-yo.org/yoyohippie/rockstar/how_to_pysanky.htm
    http://www.yo-yo.org/PrettyBoySpinners/forsale/DSC01504.jpg

    Reply

  3. These videos are segments from a much longer streaming video program, Fatman and Circuit Girl. You’re just seeing clips from Jeri’s segments, so “Fatman” (well-known game music composer George Sanger) takes a back seat to what Jeri’s doing.

    Reply

  4. I’ve really been annoyed by the commenting system on Make and Craft this year. I like to check out the comments and add to the conversation wherever I can, but I frequently notice that comments I post take a day to appear.. or often never even appear at all.

    This morning I wrote about a 500 word comment about the yo-yo communities experiences with dying plastics. I thought the comment was useful (or else I wouldn’t have typed it) and the links were pretty cool too.

    But I check back 5 hours later and it’s still not online. Like I mentioned before, this seems to be a common thing and it really bums me out. It always makes me wonder, why moderate comments at all. Is it better to delay comments in moderation or have live discussion with the possible risk of some spam getting through?

    Maybe it’s an issue with myOpenId, but I am getting messages saying my comment has been posted after I hit submit.

    Reply

  5. So sorry for the inconvenience, DocPop. Your post went into the Spam Folder and I don’t check that as often as the Non-Spam Comments list. We’ve been getting hammered with lots of spam (that often ends up in the main queue), so moderating our comments has become a big job. We don’t have a community moderator, so I have to do it on top of everything else. I’m doing the best I can, but I’ll try to step it up as much as I can (and check “Spam” more often).

    Sorry for any inconvenience or delays. And thanks for hanging in there with us. We appreciate your contributions (and those of the entire MAKE community).

    Reply

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By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

View more articles by Gareth Branwyn