MAKING ROBOTS
PLAYFUL
Invent fun, artsy robots with engineering,
coding, and a little imagination!
#5
Cover Page “i”
Preface Intro Chap 1
Xxxxxx Chap 3
Chap 3 Chap 5 Chapter 2
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With their machine bodies and computer brains, robots can be very precise.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t like to play and be creative!
Robots that make their own art give everyday things a unique twist. Ai-Da
is a realistic-looking “robot artist” who creates drawings with the help of
camera eyes and an AI brain. The robot was the idea of Aidan Meller and
Lucy Seal of Oxford University in Britain, and was built by Engineered Arts
in 2019. A team of programmers, roboticists, art experts, and psychologists
worked on Ai-Da’s design, and the self-portraits she produces combine
photography, drawing, painting, and more. Ai-Da was named after Ada
Lovelace, who, in the 1800s — long before computers and electronics
existed — came up with the idea of programming machines to do more
than solve math problems.
But robots don’t have to be super-advanced to be artists. They can even be
works of art themselves! As you saw with the Scratch chatbot in Chapter
3, adding some random moves to a robot’s behavior can make it seem
more lifelike, like it has a mind of its own. In 1991, robotics physicist Mark
W. Tilden came up with the idea for a style of robot that moves in random
bursts of activity. He called it BEAM robotics, which stands for Biology,
Electronics, Aesthetics (meaning “beauty”), and Mechanics.
The author’s version of BEAM robots, with some non-BEAM-like messy wires left showing.
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All BEAM robots are solar powered. They are designed to move after
they have stored up enough energy from the sun. That design lets them
interact with their environment by reflex instead of high-level thinking.
Their “nervous system” is made of old-fashioned switches and transistors,
instead of a circuit board with a built-in computer “brain.” But that doesn’t
mean they look like a mess of loose wires and duct tape. The parts of a
BEAM robot fit together into one neat shape, just like a living organism. In
fact, many BEAM robots resemble solar-powered insects.
BEAM inspired the Hexbug line of bug-like micro robotic toys that includes
walkers, crawlers, and little vibrating Hexbug Nanos. Hexbugs are real
robots, with motors, sensors, and electronics (or, in the case of Nanos,
programmable bodies) that tell them which direction to go in. They are
made by Innovation First International, the company that also produces VEX
Robotics kits for education and competition.
In this chapter you’ll build playful programmable robots that only use a few
moving parts. The Pen-Propelled DrawBot moves by swinging the weight
of a marker from side to side, creating different artwork every time. Can
you figure out how to steer it by controlling the movements of its pen?
You’ll also make String Straw HexaWalker, a fun little hexapod (six-legged)
robot that looks like a tensegrity but ambles along like an insect. Watch
out — these robots may be small, but they’ll surprise you with their big
personalities!
Two of the six-legged style of Hexbug.
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Project: Make a Pen-Propelled DrawBot
STEER A DRAWING ROBOT AROUND WITH A SERVO TO
MOVE THE PEN AND A MICRO:BIT TILT CONTROLLER.
Robots that can write and draw have been around for a long, long time.
Even before the age of electricity, there were automata, which are
contraptions that can move thanks to springs, cranks, cables, and weights.
In the late 1700s, watchmaker Pierre Jaquet-Droz built several automata
that still work today. They include a mechanical boy that writes as many
as 40 different letters and characters, and another that draws different
pictures. As they work, their eyes follow the movement of their hand across
the page, and they stop to dip their quills in an inkwell. To program them,
their operators arrange a series of removable teeth that turn different
gears on and off inside. Visitors enjoy watching the automata in action at
the Neuchâtel Museum of Art and History in Switzerland.
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The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia has its own drawing boy. It was built
by another Swiss clock maker, Henri Maillardet, around the same time as
the other automatons. But this amazing machine has the largest memory
of any automaton in existence. Its “programs” include drawings of a sailing
ship and a Chinese temple, and poems in French and English. Author
Brian Selznick has said the boy inspired his book The Invention of Hugo
Cabret, which was made into the movie Hugo. In 2007, the author helped
the museum hire experts to put the machine back in working order. You
can still see demonstrations of the Maillardet Automaton at the Franklin
Institute today.
Drawing robots still exist, but today they look more like 3D printers than
animatronic dolls. Known as a plotter, this type of programmable writer
usually has rails or arms that move a pen holder across a piece of paper.
Sometimes, plotters use other kinds of drawing tools besides pens. In
2013, a 12-year-old kid named Zephyrus Todd invented a plotter called
WaterColorBot that used a brush and paint. It could copy paintings you
programmed in, or follow your hand as you drew in a computer graphics
program in real time. Todd exhibited the WaterColorBot at Maker Faires
around the country, and at the White House Science Fair hosted by
President Obama.
The WaterColorBot designed by maker Zephyrus Todd.
Evil Mad Scientist/WaterColorBot.com
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