Remember chart plotters from back in the day? While those things have, pretty much, gone the way of the dinosaur, someone figured out a way to repurpose their mechanism to make this art-creating WaterColorBot.
Made by 12-year old maker Super Awesome Sylvia and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, the contraption will take a design you made from a computer paint program and transfer it to a canvas using watercolor. Granted, the result isn’t likely to get you a show at the big art gallery downtown, but it’s a fun way to make yourself a watercolor painting without actually picking up a brush and learning how to do one yourself.
The WaterColorBot employs the same mechanism as vintage pen plotters and the Etch A Sketch, using a pair of motors that automatically drive the brush into the proper position. It can take two types of inputs: artwork saved as a vector image or in real time while you sketch on a drawing software. The robot will take care of everything, from dipping the brush in water to dipping it in the right color to stroking the design onto paper. Since it’s aimed at kids, the system is designed to work with watercolors and papers you can easily get at the corner store.
Everything is shipped as a kit, so there’s some assembly required. All the complex components, such as the motor controller board, are pre-assembled, though, so this should require just a slight step more work than your flat-pack furniture from IKEA.
Currently, the WaterColorBot is raising funding on Kickstarter. Pledges to reserve a unit starts at $295.