tavola






This awesome Pluribot was produced as assignemet during FabAcademy 2016, weeks 9 and 10 at Turin Fablab.
It’s a machine designed to reproduce pixel art on bubble wrap sheet.
Mdf lasercutted, its Based on Gestalts kit, pyGestalt framework and Grasshopper.
All the work was done by the FablabTorino's FabAcademy Team:
Gianfranco Caputo // Marco Cassino // Stefano Galbo // Stefano Paradiso // Pierluigi Vona







Assembling

The idea is combine pixel art with bubble wrap. From the medieval cathedrals windows and the artistic movement of pointillism, to our dear and old informatic pixel system, passing through the bubble wrap packaging!







Mechanical Desing

To move X and Y there were no problems with stepper motors, but use a third stepper to move the needle on the z axis seemed a waste, so we customized servo motor that could push down our needle just enough to inject.


Cutting files
Model





Hardware Design

Once connected all circuit boards and all the wires, abbaimo decided to implement the Pluribot with a base in plexi opal within which bind and hide the gestalt, the Arduino with the shield and the power supply. (Ste_P page link). We have also refine on the feeder: added two guides to improve the dynamics and made some changes in order to easily remove and replace the syringe.






Interface

In order to make easy produce awesome bubble graphics, we have decided to produce a grasshopper scketch that will generate the array with the position for the Pluribot Machine.






Materials

Combine tonic water and gelatine, in order to have a liquit to inject that will be solid. Why the tonic?
It is surprisingly fluorescent with the wood light!
The only quinine in tonic water was not enough to get a good fluorescence, so we added to the process the felt of a fluo marker that we dismounted and sacrificed for the occasion.






Problems

1_ PRESSURE: the high pressure generated with a mechanical compression applied by a machine, it squeezes the material out from our connector, with consequent involuntary spillage of liquids --> to manage it, we need to put watertight this connection.

2_GESTALT: official documentation partially incomplete and low diffusion of the product means problems. Works just the makefile precompiled, if you trying to compile it yourself does not work. Communication with the gestalt often collapses and working with an external Arduino, creates synchronization problems in some movements.

3_BUBBLE WRAP: too different types. Some have the oval bubbles and the arrangement does not create a grid matrix as the rows are offset and in a small portion such as our work area, the drawings are difficult to understand.