RoboSpinArt.com

The creation of the RoboSpinArt machine is detailed in the January 08 issue of Nuts and Volts magazine. We were also recently at First Night Austin showing off both RoboSpinArt machines with the Ponginator and PingPongPrinter on display as well. It was a lot of fun.

SO, all the struggle, all the pressure all the work… and it was all a great success! We arrived on site about 10:00am and by 1:30pm we had kids lining up to paint! Though we weren’t supposed to “start” till 2:00pm, we decided to go ahead and spin up the machines. We had a non-stop line of people running the machines from about 1:45pm till 11:10pm when we ran out of cards. We started with 800 cards so I know we had at least that many finished artworks by the end of the evening. When we ran low on cards later in the evening we started scrounging for cards that had been “rejected” earlier in the day due to paint drops of fingerprints and using those!

I’ve begun to work on a video that shows how things went, but in the meantime you can check out this little gallery of some of the pictures taken here. As soon as I have the video ready, I’ll post it here. Thanks to all who sent emails for your support and encouragement!

Ok, so we’re couting down to the premiere of the RoboSpinArt machines at First Night Austin. We have what, 4 weekends remaining?? Yikes! I’ve gotten most of the parts scraped together, but with the change from an analog, brushed electric motor to a stepper motor for the rotating platform, some code re-writes will have to be implemented… But c’mon, how hard could that be?

I intend to use this blog as a place to share some of the triupms and frustrations as we progress…

I noticed that in the KUT article, on the web site they showed a picture of me holding the final product from the RoboSpinArt machine. They rather conspicuously place the word art in quotes (i.e. “art”). A couple of people pointed out that KUT, by placing the word in quotes, seemed to be poking fun at the output of the machine and questioning its validity as “art”.

This got me thinking that if someone feels that the whole reason for the RoboSpinArt machine is a little paper card with some paint on it, then they have totally missed the point of the project! Let me see if I can explain…

When I was a kid, small fairs and carnivals would come through town and they would offer the ability to make “Spin Art”. The machines they used were the pinnacle of simplicity; a table with a hole cut in it for a bucket with a motor in the bottom. The operator would turn on the motor and you used a “ketchup bottle” type squirter to dump some paint on the card. After a few minutes, the operator would turn off the motor and hand you the finished painting. At 10 years old, I thought this was very cool!

By comparison, my son (who is 10 yrs old BTW) is not used to dealing with devices that don’t have some type of digital interface. The PlayStation, the TV remote, the microwave, the computer, his MP3 player.. all the things he uses and understands have buttons & joysticks, and are usually accompanied by boops, beeps, voice prompts and/or a Rockin’ stereo sound track. Though, as a kid, *I* was fascinated by the simple spinning colors of the machine, he was not nearly as impressed. When I described how Spin Art was made, he said it sounded “boring”.

So, I started to think of ways I might be able to “update” the venerable spin-art paradigm to make it familiar and enticing to the “joystick generation”. These kids expect special effects, buttons, joysticks, and of course, a rockin’ stereo soundtrack. So, I decided to use the arcade game metaphor and package the machine in such a way that it would feel familiar:

• The manual paint bottles were replaced with pumps that would expel one drop of paint for each button press. The idea would be to make sure they had a limited amount of “ammo” to use on their paper (i.e. 30 paint shots). This also prevents younger kids from dumping the entire paint bottle on the paper and making it into a soggy mess!
• I added a joystick that allows them to “aim” where they want the paint to land by controlling a “gantry” that moves over the paper.
• I added a time “countdown” that creates a sense of urgency (and also to make sure that no one “monopolizes” the machine).
• To add a new twist (heh!) I had the joystick up/down function control the *speed* of the spinning turntable. If you time the drops of paint to co-coincide with a speed change, you can get the color streaks to “bend” or “curve” instead of heading straight to the edge of the paper. This sort of “hidden” functionality was reminicent of “special” combo-moves in video games.
• A power amp, stereo speakers and dual MP3 players adds sound effects for each feature, a voice prompting system and, of course, a rockin’ stereo sound track!

So, in summary, anyone that thinks the final piece of paper with some psychedelic paint blobs is the point of the exercise is missing the point. This project is about a new interface to an old art form and bridging the gap between the art of the past and the kids of today.

KUT, Austin’s Public Radio Station, began airing a short clip in their morning news broadcast (10/6) about First Night 2007 which featured Vern Graner and the RoboSpinArt machine. The audio clip and news story can be found on KUT’s web site here:

http://www.kut.org/items/show/5939

Additional news reports about First Night 2007 can be found here:

http://keyetv.com/local/local_story_278175349.html

We were invited by First Night Austin to bring out the RoboSpinArt machine to show it off for the press as an example of the type of innovative, artistic projects FNA encourages. We were interviewed by different members of the press and lots of folks got to spin up their own artwork. Though the heat got pretty bad (Why oh why did we make black the default outfit for The Robot Group!? ) we had a great time and the machine performed well for everyone. A set of photos from the event are linked here.

The venerable spin art machines of the 1960’s & 70s created funky, psychedelic artwork many of us remember from the carnivals and county fairs of our youth. Simply put, “spin art” is created when paint is dropped onto a rotating paper, allowing centrifugal force to make streaks of color. The RoboSpinArt machine updates this concept by making spin art attractive to the so-called “joystick generation” of today while also overcoming some of the limitations of the original design.

The RoboSpinArt machine allows you to create spin art by using a joystick to position a “paint gantry” above the paper and a series of buttons to dispense paint in measured amounts. Add an exciting light show, a rocking sound track, and a countdown timer that creates a sense of urgency, and you have a RoboSpinArt machine!