Drawing
Robot

It won’t surprise you to hear that Paradowski has a 3D printer. What might come a surprise is that we have a Maker channel on Slack, and in it, there have been some contentious messages on who gets to use the printer for the day. No, our 3D printer isn’t in our Impulse Buy Corner gathering dust. Instead, it’s made and inspired a smorgasbord of creations, like our Drawing Robot.

Once we got the hang of how our computers communicated with the 3D printer’s arm and extruder, we wondered what other objects we could talk to and make create for us. Using a couple of stepper motors and some fishing line, we created a Raspberry Pi-powered device that wielded a Dry Erase pen. By placing two spatial sensors to either side of it, the Drawing Robot knew the parameters in which it could create, and the scale of its task.

At first, we told it to draw images that already existed. And for weeks, we were happy to play a ridiculously detailed homage to the likes of Honest Abe, Philip Glass, and Thom Yorke.

Then, because we’re greedy, we created an app where we could draw our own scribbles… er… lovely sketches for the robot to replicate.

We’re already thinking of ways our clients can use this robot at events; creating pixel-perfect art in real time.