TinyRobot

Machine · 2021 · From the bench

Robots That Draw

A robot that hangs on the wall and redraws Charles's drawings, one long line at a time. A watercolor painted by Charles and a robot at the same time, on the same sheet of paper. An etch-a-sketch that turns its own knobs. A robot that hand-letters the gift tags at Christmas.

Placeholder illustration of a TinyRobot worker bot. [Replace with a photo of the drawing robot at work.]
Built
2021
What it is
Machine
Status
Ongoing
Our role
Design, mechanics, electronics, code, and half of the drawing
Inside
stepper motors, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, a lot of pens, [the rest to confirm]

How it works

The hanging one is a polargraph: two motors on the wall, two cords, and a pen hanging between them. Change the length of each cord and the pen goes anywhere on the page.

The watercolor was the interesting one. Charles and the robot worked on the same piece at the same time, each reacting to what the other had done. That was 2022, before everyone started arguing about machines making art.

[What drives the etch-a-sketch, and how the lettering robot learned the handwriting.]

Build log

  1. First watercolor painted together with a robot, at the same time, on the same paper.

  2. The hanging drawbot redraws Charles's own drawings on the wall. [Confirm date.]

  3. Etch-a-sketch robot: Arduino, Raspberry Pi and steppers turning the knobs. [Confirm date.]

More work