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Harvard Professor Creates Paper Accelerometer
SuperSlacker64 writes "In an age where just about everything starts going digital, it's refreshing to see someone going back to our roots: paper. Well, sort of. Researchers at Harvard have created a cheap, dime-sized, paper-based accelerometer that they believe could be used in various ways, such as inexpensive medical testing. The device works because a carbon bridge stretches and changes resistivity as the device is accelerated."
When they say "cheap," they mean it; the cost per device is estimated to be about four cents.
I thought professors were people who couldn't hack it in the real world, but it turns out academia is behind most innovation in one way or another? Color me retarded.
Everything works on paper!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
I hath sinned. I read the article. *hangs head in shame* The paper counterparts are far less sensitive. Silicon sensors give about 80 micronewtons while the paper give 120 un.
80 vs. 120 micronewtons isn't too bad. If by 'sensitivity' you mean the expected standard deviation for measurement noise, and assuming such noise is roughly gaussian, then you can almost achieve the precision of a silicon sensor by using two paper sensors and averaging the results (120/sqrt(2) = 84.9).
Throw together 25 of them (for a total cost of $1.00) and you can achieve 24 micronewton 1-sigma precision.