Draw DIsk

An interactive sketch has been physically drawn by a motor-controlled robot.

Mov.1. the DrawDisk Application

Mov.2. controlling a drawing robot with the DrawDisk application

Fig. 1 shows an interactive sketch displayed on an LCD screen and a physical version of it drawn on a real canvas. The drawing robot is controlled via PC’s parallel port. The tangible device interfacing technique is explained in detail in the project “photobiotic tadpoles.” In the interactive sketch, the left section is used for planning a sketch, and the right section shows its preview. We call the left section a “draw disk.” In the draw disk, the inner and outer tracks are used to steer the right and left wheels of the robot independently. The cells in the tracks are turned on/off by clicking them. The status of each cell is used to instruct the motors of the robot to rotate or stop.

Fig.1. An interactive sketch displayed on an LCD screen (top)
and the physical version of it drawn by the robot(bottom)

Fig.2 shows four types of cell status and their resultant drawing patterns. With the combinations of these patterns, we can create various geometric drawings.

Fig.2. Four types of cell status

Fig.3 is the drawing robot and a breadboard used for the installation. In this project, I used a simple robot which has only two wheels to control its motions. But I can also attach additional paint tools such as air brushes and control them through electronic actuators. This project gave me great inspirations for making tangible media installations and I’m still working on this.

Fig.3. The drawing robot and a simple breadboard

Fig.4. Installation setup

DrawDisk (2005)
Java, Processing