Project 1 - Our Drawing Machine

After some independent research our group got together and shared some ideas and inspiration. We all had some very different suggestions about the media we wanted to use as we wanted our project to stand apart from the ordinary as well as the other groups, we were aware that we needed to produce 3 different drawings and that lead us to the idea of producing multiple works of art at the same time.

I like the sophistication and the seeming coordination needed to be able to produce multiple works of art simultaneously; I think this fits the capabilities of robot art perfectly as while humans may have trouble multi-tasking to such a great extent, a robot can be programmed to run certain functions simultaneously and still respond to a variety of stimulus. I also liked this decision because it not only let everyone compromise on the best art form for the robot but it also displayed the complexity of the robot and its proficiency in the arts (something that humans may be dismissive of or threatened by.) The next step was to decide what media would work well together and what we thought would create the most impact both as a still image and when demonstrated to the class. Seb was particularly passionate about attempting light drawings with his new camera so we all agreed on a test run of this and set about to decide on two more ways of producing an image that would work well with this.



We liked the results of the tests and learnt that even the littlest amount of light would effect the outcome of the picture, above we have two of the tests, the left uses a light flashing in the S.O.S pattern to produce an irregular dashed line, while the one on the right is a more literal path taken by the robot with brighter spots in the places where it had paused.

I liked the idea of a light drawing because it turns out to be more than exists in real-time, it represents time and space and movement and cannot be truly appreciated until you can see the photograph; this could be a neat effect as we could show the audience the performance which would be rather intriguing but not reveal its full potential until the image is shown soon after.

We wanted to create a 2D image and a 3D image to compliment the light drawing, as these would be produced in the dark we aimed to shock the audience with the complexities of what we had created when the light was again switched on.

Our initial ideas were using a crayon covered floor with bright paint underneath and to have the robot scratch the paint away as it moved, this was a practice that we hadn't participated in since primary school and was an idea that had appeal because it created the image by subtraction which was more interesting to us than adding say ink or paint. Secondly we liked the idea of the robot as not just a machine but also as lego which when combined with the crayon image kept to a youthful theme.

For the 3D image wool was suggested to be paired with a series of obstacles that would be sensed by an ultrasonic sensor instructing the robot to turn around the object thus looping the trailing wool and creating a 3D pattern. Duplo was chosen to be used as obstacles as we needed a flat surface for the ultrasonic waves to bounce off and still be caught. Our biggest perceived challenge with this was robot design, we need to be able to navigate the robot through its work without it catching on its own previous work.