DrawBot is a wall robot created by teacher Edwin Dertien and his student Janwillem te Voortwis. The robot moves up and down on bicycle chain pulleys. When in the exact correct spot, it uses one of eight spray cans to spray out some color.
It can create a 3 ‘ x 4’ work of art in about two hours.
Here it is shown making it’s own version of the Mona Lisa.
Once a spray paint can is empty it needs to be replaced, often with a different color. This helps create a pop art effect.
Sewbo is a robot sewing machine hybrid that can sew shirts all by itself.
The shirt is stiffened with something that is water soluble so the robot can more easily sew it together and then the stiffener is removed at the end.
Sewbo states:
Despite widespread use in other industries, automation has failed to find a place in apparel manufacturing due to robots’ inability to handle limp, flexible fabrics. Sewbo avoids these hurdles by temporarily stiffening fabrics, making it easy for conventional robots to build clothes as if they were made from sheet metal.
Engineers from MIT have created 3d printed structures that can be controlled with magnets. They have created a new kind of 3D printing material that ends up soft to the touch but embedded with magnetic particles.
The desired shape is then printed with a magnet next to the printing nozzle. This magnet orients the magnetic particles in the same direction when the object is being printed.
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Scribit is a wall drawing robot that uses erasable markers. You can draw images and text on any vertical surface but Scribit works best on plaster, whiteboard or glass.
Currently on Kickstarter with a price of $269. they have already met their funding goal.
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Swiss company ecorobotix have developed a robot that can micro dose weeds with weedkiller.
The fully autonomous robot is basically a giant solar panel on wheels. It can operate for 12 hours at a time, navigating by GPS along with additional sensors and a camera.
Using two tanks, the robot micro doses the weeds, using 20 times less weed killer than traditional methods.
Now, if the engineers could only make the robot pull out the weeds instead of using chemicals.
