Low-Cost, Arduino-Compatible Drawing Robot

Bringing women into technical education at times seems to be an insurmountable challenge. As a counter, a small drawing robot created by [MakersBox] might help. The robot was used in a ChickTech workshop for teen girls.

640px-Turtle_draw
“Turtle draw” by Valiant Technology Ltd..

The goals for the robot were to have an easy to build, easy to program robot that did something interesting, and was also low-cost so the workshop participants could take it home and continue to learn. These requirements led [MakersBox] to the Adafruit Pro Trinket 3V, stepper motors for accuracy, and a 3d printed chassis to allow for customization.

Another version of the Arduino should work without any problems and even possibly a Raspberry Pi, suggests [MakersBox]. With the latter’s more diverse programming environment opening up a lot of possibilities

Drawing robots like this for education are not new. [Seymour Papert] created one of the first turtle robots, seen at the left, in the 1980s. He even created the Logo programming language and adapted it for use with the turtle. An interesting similarity between [MakersBox’s] and the original turtle is the drawing pen is in the center of both.

Hat tip to our friends at Adafruit.

A rose, is a rose, is a rose, even if drawn by a robot, after the break.

9 thoughts on “Low-Cost, Arduino-Compatible Drawing Robot

  1. “An interesting similarity between [MakersBox’s] and the original turtle is the drawing pen is in the center of both.”

    Of course it’s in the center. Otherwise it would be impossible to make a turn without drawing an arc.

  2. Why do people feel the need to pressure girls into going into engineering? If they are interested they will go; if not, they will just be miserable and disappointed. There are already enough miserable and disappointed people in the world.

    1. Because one of the reasons women are hesitant to go into engineering fields is that most engineering fields lack a balance of women. If we never balance out the fields, women won’t want to join.

    2. Yup, exactly. And no calls to get more males in female dominated industries either. As a gay man, I’m not calling for more gay people in the tech industry, and if my being gay contributed in some way to me being hired then I would be ashamed. I want to be hired because I meet the requirements of the job.

  3. Cool…. it would be great if this bot could be used to draw cutting/sewing-patterns on fabric… so sintead of printing the patterns on pape and cutting them out, stitching them together an transfering them then to the fabric….Have’nt seen such an project before…and such an bot with grippy/spiked wheeles could go on nearly any fabric quite well.

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