Slime Lamp Mixes, Changes Colors, Responds to Heartbeats

This amorphous, gooey blob is a slime lamp — or a series of slime lamps — that visualize the path of the light from colored LEDs. Mix them together, and they stay lit, acquiring and blending characteristics like a space amoeba.

What’s a space amoeba? I don’t know. But it might be made of borax, water, and colloid pigment like these lamps. Maker Hirotaka Niisato, from Tokyo, Japan, has brought the slime lamps to 11 Maker Faires around Asia — including teaching attendees in Taipei how to make them — and will bring them to the Bay Area Maker Faire in May.

But the best part is, they include a biological sensor and feedback mechanism that reads your heartbeat and causes the LEDs to glow in time to your pulse; pick up a lamp, and it’s like holding your heart in your hand. Niisato recommends exploring the exhibit with a significant other, touching, bending, stretching, molding your partner’s heart.