Maker Faire 2016 Drawing Robot Presentation Slides

Maker Faire Bay Area 2016 was a wild ride!  If you were able to come to my presentation on tiny drawing robots – thank you!  If you weren’t able to make it, I’m sorry I missed you.  I got to see some old friends1 and make some new ones2 , which is probably the biggest reason I blog and exhibit and present at Maker Faire.

Admittedly, I was a concerned that I would be talking to a bunch of empty benches, that I would run through all of my slides in the first five of my allotted 25 minutes, or that I would be presenting to a completely silent crowd.  If you came to the presentation, you got to see that none of those things happened.  I started talking to the crowd a little early, answering some questions and letting people try out my demonstration robot with the keypad.  When I actually started the presentation the benches were full and there were several people standing around them.  There were some really great questions from the audience and lots of enthusiastic ideas.

If you didn’t come to the presentation, you missed both of my daughters making impromptu appearances, one uncooperative robot, one cooperative robot, and you had the chance to grab a “maker card” and actually use my demonstration robot.

As promised, I’ve posted my slides (above) so you can relive the magic.

  1. Like you Kongorilla! []
  2. Like you Robert, Vanna, Elijah, and Matt []

How to Build a Tiny Drawing Robot at Maker Faire Bay Area 2016

Drawing Robots at Maker Faire 2016!

Drawing Robots at Maker Faire 2016!

I’ll be doing a short presentation on how to build (and operate) a tiny drawing robot at Maker Faire Bay Area 2016.  My time slot is Sunday May 22, 2016 from 11:00am to 11:25am at the Make: Electronics stage in Zone 2 aka “Expo Hall.”  You can see where I’ve outlined Zone 2 and the Make: Electronics stage in the above picture.

If you’re around, I’d love to see you.  However, I know how hectic Maker Faire can be and how difficult it can be to get anywhere.  If you want to hang out, I’m planning to go to the Maker Paella Dinner on Friday night on the Maker Faire grounds and the Hackaday meetup on Saturday night O’Neill’s Irish Pub in San Mateo.1

  1. Tickets to the Hackaday meetup are free – just follow the link and RSVP []

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Do NOT let this happen!

I want to put some finishing touches on my TinyCNC drawing robot before Maker Faire, but I’m a little ambivalent about how best to show off it’s drawing/CNC abilities.1 There are several excellent ways to control such a robot – perhaps you can help me decide?  My thought is that an IR remote would be really nifty, since I could just hand the “control” to someone and they could play with the robot, getting it to draw something.  Then again, feeding gcode to the ‘bot and having it actually draw something semi-recognizable would also be great.2

What's the best way to control a TinyCNC / drawing robot?

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For context, here’s the links to the various possible ideas for control mechanisms:

Please vote above3 and let me know what you’d like to see working at Maker Faire!

  1. Photo by tenaciousme []
  2. Heck, the robots are small enough that I’ll probably bring more than one. []
  3. Or, comment below []