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by colindean 3611 days ago
Nike Chalkbot was a project by Pittsburgh-based Deeplocal: http://www.deeplocal.com/projects/chalkbot.html
2 comments

Historical note on the evolution of drawbots: Nike's Chalkbot was a direct and uncredited steal of IAA's Graffiti Writer robot project/ Streetwriter truck: from political dissent to branded drivel in one smooth move.

The OP's Chalkbot however announces itself as being inspired by Jurg Lehni's HEKTOR (2002). Scholars (HT @Sandy Noble of Polargraph) will note HEKTOR's twin-cord design from 2.30m in this deeply awesome MIT MediaLab/ SIGGRAPH video from 1988. Made of Lego! Programmed in LOGO!

Presume there are antecedents (pendulographs, anyone?) for this too. AFAICS, Lehni does not acknowledge the MIT crew anywhere... tsk tsk.

ACM SIGGRAPH 1988 Issue 40 - Lego/Logo

https://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=8213

Graffitiwriter vs Nike Chalkbot

https://vimeo.com/6075609

http://blog.nearfuturelaboratory.com/2009/07/07/chalkbot-ver...

Polargraph

http://polargraph.co.uk

Nice resource for drawing machines here:

https://drawingmachines.org/index.php

Definitely! It was before my time there - but Deeplocal is great.