Assignment

* Develop a plan for dissemination of your final project.

Neil's class Summary

Invention

The invention is a pen that alters its behavior depending on the data it receives from the surrounding environment. It can be used manually or robotically, both for playful and artistic purposes.

This device was made during the 2017 Fab Academy course taught at our local FabLab located at Sinergia Tech in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. I must thank and mention the whole team of Synergy Tech for the support, particularly our local coach Carolina Vignoli and especially Alvaro Cassinelli as mentor and enthusiast of my final project.

Licence

Creative Commons License

I decided to declare my project under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This means basically that you are free to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material.
  • The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

    • Plan for dissemination & future opportunities

    1. The creation of a modular system of different interchangeable and combinable parts of sensors (real-time information inputs such as light, rgb levels, sound, uv level, distance, gesture, pulse, etc.) and pointer-tools (which respond to information input such as servo motors, stepper or solenoids, etc.) could result in a device capable of writing, drawing, painting, etching or even printing, taking data and fluctuations of the environment to alter the shape of a drawing, the words of a poem or the relief of a sculpture.

    2. Exploring the combination of the pen and the different machines that could interact with it, would be access to the possibility of "photographing" and "revealing" the environment in multiple new ways. It could be used to create small sculptures that map the surrounding environment or also as part of interactive art installations.

    3. Its simplicity of components, assembly and operation can help other people, especially children, to understand the basic concepts for creating robots. The pencil could also be part of a kit of simple objects to make during a digital manufacturing workshop.

    I consider the final project as an initial prototype to continue exploring its application possibilities.