Carlo Ratti from MIT wanted a way to be creative without needing to use another screen to capture peoples’ attention. He took the idea of creating art and turned it into a project involving a vertical plotter, and demonstrated the concept at Milan Expo 2015. Now with a team of engineers and designers Ratti has developed Scribit, an art robot for your walls.
Scribit is an aluminum disc construct, 8.6 inches wide by 3.15 inches thick, with wheels that allow it to climb walls when hanging from two attachment points. The group says that all you need are two nails, a power outlet, and the internet to be able to draw art on your wall. An additional design enhancement is the erasable ink system in the robot that can create lines on a flat surface and then erase the design later. The ‘eraser’ is a heating element that raises its temperature to 149 degrees Fahrenheit and then retraces its path over the art. Special markers will be sold by the Scribit team but the FAQ says that any dry erase markers can be used if their shafts are between 8 and 12 millimeters in diameter. The question page also says that permanent markers can be used for a longer lasting design.
Most vertical surfaces can be climbed by the bot, but whiteboards, glass, and plaster walls are the surfaces that are recommended. An app lets the user download art from the community or create their own visuals. Several examples are shown on the campaign page; a restaurant’s daily menu, a social media professional showing their twitter feed, and lots of different art that’s placed on walls and then erased just as quickly.
The concept of a wheeled robot moving in x-y coordinates across a vertical surface controlled by two motors doesn’t seem completely novel, we’ve written about a similar bot used to clean solar modules previously, but Ratti was awarded a patent for the system. I’m interested to revisit this project in a year and see if the erasable marker concept really works or if they’ve changed the design medium. I’m also hoping that a wireless version is released, because the requirement for the Scribit to be cord-connected to a power source seems like an odd choice. Scribit has blown past its modest funding goal and the campaign will end on July 5, 2018.