My previous drawing robots have a very simple mechansim for holding markers—either a series of holes on Minus E or a tube on Scribbot. There was also no lifting mechanism, as my robots’ scribbly drawing style did not require it. This year, inspired by the pen-holding mechansim on pen plotters, I decided to add a similar mechansim to my drawing robot.

In my past code sketches, I have created patterns in various forms. Most of the time, the patterns were formed simply by repeating the same visual. In a recent class, Tega gave us a systematic overview of different approaches to make patterns. It was mind blowing to see how extensively people have studied patterns. In particular, I was very much drawn into Truchet tiles.

Back in 2017, I built my first mobile drawing robot for my undergraduate capstone at NYU Shanghai. Some of my design choices at the time were constrained by the resources and timeline. Now that I am back in school, pursing my master’s degree, I wanted to redesign the robot. My main goal was to make the robot smaller so it becomes more portable. I also thought this would be a nice challenge to practice my CAD skills and deepen my understanding of the electronics.

Inspired by 18th-century automatons such as the writer and the draughtsman by Jaquet-Droz, I wanted to create my own drawing automatons. In particular, I am hoping to build more accessible drawing automatons with a focus on enhanced programmability. As a first step, I decided to design a mechansim for drawing scribbly lines.