Massive Etch A Sketch from TV screen

[Jeri] put together an absolutely massive Etch A Sketch for The FatMan and Circuit Girl show. She had removed the DLP chip from an HD rear projection TV and decided to repurpose the 52inch screen. The movement mechanism uses pulleys from screen doors with nylon lines. The two sets of lines are fed in a criss cross pattern so that the parallel lines move in the same direction. The lines move tent poles in the x and y which controls the movements of the golf tee stylus. It’s driven by two high torque motors from $9 Harbor Freight 18V drills. They tried several different powders, but ended up using aluminum powder from an original Etch A Sketch because it sticks to everything. It will eventually be hooked up for IRC bot control once they get a large enough h-bridge.

[via adafruit]

Comments [32]

tagged: adafruit, aluminum, etch a sketch, fatman and circuit girl, hd, jeri ellsworth, rear projection, tv

Reader Comments

WTF is up with that video?

Oh, look! A massive etch-a-sketch.

Posted at 12:15 pm on May 13th, 2009 by anon

really cool :)

Posted at 12:31 pm on May 13th, 2009 by bolke

Now they need to make it computer-controlled so you can print to it like a plotter.

Posted at 1:43 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Anonymous

I find the female attractive

Posted at 1:55 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Ken

I have no need for a far out XXXL etch-shetch,but this may have provide me a solution to a line rigging problem, that has been plaguing me for quite some time. I need to sit down and see if this could save me some extra winch cranking time over other solutions I come up with.

Before going online with it they need to create a while to remotely erase the thing. That may require keeping the thing in a secure room so Kitty, Spot, or human rug rats aren’t maimed or killed by the process.

Posted at 2:08 pm on May 13th, 2009 by static

smart chics are hot… especially this one…

Posted at 4:00 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Nicklaus Michael (Cold)

A nice build, but this is complete shit. I would be more impressed if they had driven the actual TV electronics to do such a thing, but an etch a sketch of this size is cheaply built from B&Q parts. Waste of a TV set and entirely pointless. Plus Fatman doesn’t seem to know anything, just another glorified spokesman. Try some real hacks for a change, i mean the floppy audio was good why fuck it up

Posted at 5:09 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Shadow

Nice to know that hackaday will post crap like this, but they won’t post my oscilliscope built from a hi8 camera CRT hack. I mean Haack !t only have a few posts but at least they try. H.a.D has def been going downhill. RSS feed deleted.

Posted at 5:14 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Dave{}

Wow, does Jeri sleep? She seems to be a hacking machine!

Posted at 5:14 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Alan Parekh

One day she might leave google and develop a real hack. @dave that sounds cool, where u post dat?

Posted at 5:29 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Shadow

Jeri, you are lovely.

Posted at 5:44 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Steve

lol ppl talk to much shit… just jealous they didnt come up with it before her..

Posted at 5:46 pm on May 13th, 2009 by Nicklaus Michael (Cold)

how do you shake that thing?

(how has no one said that yet?)

Posted at 6:51 pm on May 13th, 2009 by dirk

These two really annoy the piss out of me.

Posted at 6:57 pm on May 13th, 2009 by m4nt3

m4nt3,if they annoy you so much find something else to read .its been said on here many times before that this is a place to express all types of hacks good or bad if there is one that you dont like than instead of running your mouth and being discouraging just overlook it and only pay attention to what pertains to your and your liking.A hacks a hack no matter what you modify i dont care if you do something cool with a frickin broomstick its still a hack,so take the good and leave the bad and quit talking shit.

Posted at 7:42 pm on May 13th, 2009 by kday

am i the only one that wants to bang jerri?

Posted at 7:59 pm on May 13th, 2009 by fdsa

probably not fdsa, but that doesn’t make you any less of an infant.

Posted at 8:09 pm on May 13th, 2009 by mdg

she is hot!!

Posted at 12:23 am on May 14th, 2009 by liebesiech

i’d like to see these guys put more effort into video production. the split screen webcam thing is kind of painful to watch. but I think the show has a lot of potential.

Posted at 12:24 am on May 14th, 2009 by amk

Why is the guy even there, remove him and just give us us some of that chick!

Posted at 3:41 am on May 14th, 2009 by epicelite

@mdg, jesus, have too many sisters or something? whats with the objectification of women discrimination, who gives a crap?

Posted at 5:18 am on May 14th, 2009 by fdsa

I’m enjoying the comments from the trolls who don’t know Jeri’s history, or her fantastic past accomplishments.

Look her up, man. You idiots are lucky she’s sharing her knowledge…treat her like a lady.

Posted at 7:15 am on May 14th, 2009 by bbaa

did the name “netch-a-sketch” ever cross their mind…?
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question317.htm
and
after scouring the net, the best explanation I can find is “aluminum powder sticks to everything.” So very scientific. massive human-interface to google fail.

Posted at 7:42 am on May 14th, 2009 by MRE

It seams no one here has thought of the real problem with this thing, erasing… seriously you need two people to do it, and that is just annoying.

Posted at 8:12 am on May 14th, 2009 by Bryan

Maybe I’m a geek, but I think that’s pretty cool! I want to see a giant Simon Says next, that you have to jump around on to match the pattern.

Posted at 9:23 am on May 14th, 2009 by Martin

That giant EAS caused me to go through about ten minutes of childhood memory free-association- and I remembered why you should NEVER smash an Etch-A-Sketch in a fireplace with a fire going. Oh- just a little heads-up: Don’t start smurfing Etch-A-Sketches any time soon,unless you enjoy entertaining those nice kids from the Bureau of Homeland Security.I realize that all of that beautiful Al powder in those things is truly cost-prohibitive as far as it goes toward launching anything towards the moon,but those suits with NO sense of humor don’t. LOL!

Posted at 11:07 am on May 14th, 2009 by Obsoe Hollerith

@bbaa, yea, i know who she is, that doesnt change anything. share knowledge? gimme a break… this is the internet, stop acting like there is decency.

Posted at 2:30 pm on May 14th, 2009 by fdsa

@fdsa

If no decency, at least have a little originality.

Beats sharing stupidity.

Posted at 7:16 pm on May 14th, 2009 by bbaa

i feel so sorry for you guys, that chick is not “hot”, “sexy” or “attractive”….. log off, go outside and find some chick to bang..

Posted at 8:02 pm on May 15th, 2009 by billhates

Open this up for use by the _INTERNET_?
are they mad?? In before giant goatse and / or penis.

Posted at 1:23 pm on May 16th, 2009 by Hunnter

@kday
You make a lengthy post criticising a random commenter saying someone should not criticise others.
See any flaw in that? Any catch?

@hunnter
Who would mind an etch-a-sketch on these subjects? you probably won’t be able to make out what it is in the first place, but even if you could, it’s a silly blocky drawing, not even the FCC would mind if it were broadcast on TV I bet.

Posted at 9:56 pm on May 16th, 2009 by Wwhat

@ wwhat
I am an expert at Etch-a-sketch.

lol but really, it wouldn’t be that hard to make nice smooth drawings, it just takes a lot of patience and time. (or a nicely designed script / sequence)

Posted at 4:49 am on May 17th, 2009 by Hunnter

Massive Etch A Sketch from TV screen

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