MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab

      Media Lab 25th Anniversary Giftbox

Thank you for attending the MIT Media Lab's 25th anniversary celebration. We hope that you will have fun constructing a unique remembrance from the components in your gift box, made possible by the Lab's High-Low Tech research group. Some suggested ideas are below, but feel to experiment on your own.

WHAT'S INSIDE
1. Silver-Plated Nylon
a stretchy conductor
for making soft circuits

to buy: shieldex
5. Battery Holder
a sewable, paintable,
tapeable holder

to buy: digikey
7. Fabric and Paper
base materials for
sewing and painting

to buy:
(paper) local arts and crafts store
(felt): sutherlandfelt.com
2. Silver-Plated Thread
conductive thread
for stitching connections

to buy: shieldex
6. Battery
a 3-volt coin cell
to buy: digikey
8. Wood and Acrylic
base materials for use
with paint and tape

to buy:
wood) local arts and crafts store
(acrylic) usplastic.com
3. Copper Tape
sticky metal foil for
building electrical paths

to buy: findtape.com
  9. LED
a bright white light
to buy: digikey
4. Carbon Paint
resistive paint for sketching
circuits and sensors

to buy: lessEMF
  10. Microcontroller
a pre-programmed mini
computer for interactivity

to buy: digikey
SAMPLE PROJECTS
Click on a thumbnail to view more images and instructions for each project.

Wine Bottle Lamp

LED Barrette/Bracelet

Business Card Light

LED Flashlight
ABOUT
HIGH-LOW TECH


The High-Low Tech group integrates high and low technological materials, processes, and cultures. Our primary aim is to engage diverse audiences in designing and building their own technologies by situating computation in new cultural and material contexts, and by developing tools that democratize engineering. We believe that the future of technology will be largely determined by end-users who will design, build, and hack their own devices, and our goal is to inspire, shape, support, and study these communities. To this end, we explore the intersection of computation, physical materials, manufacturing processes, traditional crafts, and design.

Principal Investigator

  • Leah Buechley
    Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
    AT&T Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
Graduate students
  • Edward Baafi
  • Emily Lovell
  • David Mellis
  • Hannah Perner-Wilson
  • Jie Qi
UROPs
  • Linda Delafuente
  • Tayo Falase
  • Adrian Melia
  • Kanjun Qiu
THANK YOU
  • Conductive thread and fabric donated by: Shieldex Trading, Inc.
  • The intrepid Media Labbers who spent their holiday weekend on giftbox-assembly duty!