Two months ago at an event near Koyo-tei, one by the oldest soba restaurants in Sapporo, temporary tattoos were handed out to foreign tourists visiting the region. But these weren’t any old temporary tattoos. Incorporating traditional Japanese motifs and designs, they were developed in collaboration with a dermatologist to detect soba (buckwheat noodle) allergies.
“When it comes to food allergies, soba is the peanut of Japan,” says ad agency J. Walter Thompson, who partnered with Hokkaido’s soba association to develop the allergy-detecting stickers. “About 0.03% of people are allergic to the buckwheat noodle.” It’s one of the most common allergies among kids in Japan and is well-telegraphed throughout the country. However, foreign tourists often aren’t familiar with the allergy, which can cause anaphylaxis shock just like the peanut and potentially ruin an otherwise great trip to Japan.
The series of temporary tattoos were developed with a dermatologist in hopes of raising awareness about the soba allergy. At the event last month, 200 temporary tattoos were handed out. Testers applied the tattoo using soba-yu, the broth from boiling soba, instead of plain water. “If you are allergic, your skin will turn red and the color will be visible through the clear plastic sections of the tattoo motif.”
The soba association that initiated the fun campaign hopes to broaden the effort and eventually distribute the temporary tattoos throughout Japan.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: The latest on Raspberry Pi RP2350-E9, Bluetooth 6, 4,000 Stars and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!