A record player is played through a speaker which has a rod connected inside of it which a paintbrush. Effectively oscillating the paintbrush with the speaker. The speaker is surrounded by glass structures and the speaker and ink container are mounted in wood branches. A roll of paper is pulled by the brush to the ceiling by a motor mourned there. The paper is painted with a ink line and then left on the floor.
I have mixed feelings about this piece, it demonstrates a nice way of combining audio and visual data in a way that is clear and coherent to the viewer. Its mechanics are simple and intuitive and produce an ink line that is a physical result of the sound being produced. Also, the plaster encasings for the technical parts decently bridge the gap between the very mechanical and organic materials used. However, the glass and wood don’t seem to relate that strongly to the music played and seem a little mismatched. The piece is rather simple and doesn’t work for me as more than a proof of concept. I wish the roller wasn’t mounted on the ceiling so the piece could actually be installed somewhere else.
vimeo.com/41600016
Four separate drawing machines constructed out of mostly wood. They are a ball in ink rolling around a pivoting platform, a series of markers rotating above a spinning piece of paper, magnets rotating on gears underneath paper moving graphite and finally a swing type construction with dripping paint on it.
What I enjoy about these is the purely physical nature of the mechanics which generate the output. Each one has a core, distinct physical property it uses as its theme and main mechanic. I think they are great starts and a lot can be done to expand and develop the mechanics. Currently each one seems to produce nearly identical output each time it is used. Adding some variance or having the users input directly influence the work would make the piece and product more interesting.
“The Senseless Drawing Robot is a self-propelling device on a skateboard that sprays abstract linework on a stretch of wall using a double pendulum. extrapolating the dynamism of modern graffiti forms, the robot takes advantage of the chaotic gestures of the swinging pendulum to create erratic yet organic paint strokes. Featuring a motorized skateboard base, the construction consists of a single arm equipped with a rotary encoder attached to the fulcrum of the pendulum. as the robot moves from side to side, the swinging motion of the arm is amplified through the physics of inertia which is delineated by a quick release of paint from the spray can. the resulting collage of lines is a complex illustration derived from a simple operation.”
The title Senseless Drawing Robot seems to be a critique of the value of graffiti or perhaps of its own contributions to graffiti. The piece feel to me less of a critique and more of taking the movement that is very human and making a mechanical assembly that owns the same movement. Its robotic arm is very successful in capturing the movement and form of graffiti drawing. The curves of graffiti seemed to be connected to the structure of a human arm, but this mechanic makes it feel owned by the robot as well. From a distance it is nearly indistinguishable from what might be on the side of bridge or back ally. While it captures the fundamental stroke of graffiti it lacks any of the personalization or distinctiveness that gives some graffiti value. I also feel that graffiti losses its value when constructed artificially in an art gallery such as this. The robot should be out side doing real graffiti next to other human artists to see how it really holds up.
Robots socially integrated into society is a hot topic for futurist discussion and an often used idea for hollywood. The ability to understand human nuance, implication and subtlety is one of the most alluring and distant goals for robots. While these more ambitious goals are still a way off it is interesting to see where robots are already entering into useful rolls in society. I think the beginnings of it are happening now, with robots being used on more fringe parts of society, like assisting the elderly and those with mental disabilities. In this video we see some robots that are used to help the elderly in japan, a country with a greatly disproportionate elderly population. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFexeUheZOk
This is Paro a robot that mostly avoids uncanny valley by being a robotic stuffed animal. This type of companion bots are supposedly already being used to keep the elderly and children with autism company although I do not know the degree of use. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx8mv87e6wE
I think robots will continue to enter into domains classically considered human. Perhaps baby and infant care is next. As often happens with revolutionary changes the change is first seen as impossible, then slowly unavoidable.
The robonaut is the first humanoid robot to come into use in space.
The practicality of this device is obviously quite limited. It is intended as a research platform into humanoid robot presence in later missions.
NASA hopes that by watching the interactions and problems that a robot in a space craft presents, it can improve them to a point where deep-space missions can be unmanned. (more…)
Body pong to be played between two people using either their hands or their bodies using processing. The inputs are two paralax distance sensors and the screen output and score led’s are the outputs. The video got a bit silly as we were both tired.
This is HI-BOT! He is there to greet you, regardless of the location you enter! So long as you stop by and say ‘hi’ first. If you are too far away, he assumes that you are not entering to speak to him and does not wave.