Sure, the invisibility cloak that has been seen in numerous science fiction as well as fantasy movies have remained elusive, although there has been strides made in that department to date. How about a more innovative method of camouflage? Mother nature leads the way again in terms of inspiration with the chameleon coming into the picture, inspiring textile designer Judit Eszter Karpati to work on an experimental fabric which is capable of changing its color on the fly. How cool is that?
Although we haven’t yet figured out how to make a real invisibility cloak, we are coming up with better ways to camouflage ourselves. And what better way to do that than taking a cue from nature? The chameleon can change the color of its skin, so wouldn’t it be cool if we could to? Textile designer Judit Eszter Karpati may have found a way to do that, thanks to the use of an experimental fabric she created that changes color on the fly. Remember those t-shirts in the 1980’s that changed color with your body temperature? Those shirts used a conductive dye. Karpati’s material, Chromosonic, also uses conductive dye, but the rest of the color-changing process is much more high-tech: nichrome wires are woven into the fabric and connected to an Arduino microcontroller, which is connected to a power supply.