[Nick Poole] over at SparkFun was playing with some force resistive strips. He wanted to use them as a keyboard input. It occurred to him that the office laminator could feasibly laminate a sheet of paper and the resistor into one sealed piece.
He put the assembly inside the pouch, ran it through the laminator, and it worked! After this success he built on it to make a full resistive keyboard. Then it occurred to him to ask, as it would to any good hacker with access to expendable company property “what else can I laminate”? Basically everything.
His next experiment was an LED throwie. No problem. Bolstered by the battery not exploding, he got more creative. The next victim was one of SparkFun’s Arduino-compatible boards and his business card. Success again.
Finally he went full out. Since the input rollers to the laminator are soft silicone it can apparently accommodate a fair amount of variance in height. He threw a full noise maker keyboard with resistive pads and a USB cable into the assembly. No issue.
It seems like a pretty good technique for making keyboards, weather proof circuits, and more.
