REFRAME

BACKGROUND // Last quarter, as part of an independent study, I decided to fulfill a vision I had to build a low cost wall plotter that used a loop of clear plastic as an infinite rewritable surface. At the end of the quarter, I had the hardware built, but the workflow for displaying designs or interacting with the device was cumbersome at best.

If you are interested in the hardware build details, you can check them out here: bolandcommajack.com/kuchora

OBJECTIVE // For ReFrame 2021, I decided to build my own custom way of interacting with the device and convert their sketches to a physical drawing with the touch of a button. My hope is that the live demo will be an interactive experience allowing people to take control of the software and collaborate on a single physical drawing remotely.

INGREDIENTS //

……………(1)  CNC controller

……………(2) Stepper Motors

……………(3) Laser Cut Panels

……………(4) FDM printing

……………(5) Miscellaneous Hardware (Bearings, Machine screws, eccentric hex nuts, square rails)

DEVELOPMENT //

The meat of this project was the development of a software application to facilitate a simple user interaction with the device. Utilizing a GUI library that I have been developing, similar to Android’s Model-View-Controller structure, I followed this simple workflow to realize the program within a few days:

1. Layout Design - In Illustrator, I laid out the blocks for all the GUI elements (buttons, labels, timer, drawing canvas) with simply constructed geometry.

2. XML Layout Specification - Using XML, this layout is transcribed into a file that will be read by the program, specifying the locations of each element and it’s unique parameters.

3. Program Logic - The library that I built previously grabs the xml file and converts java objects that are displayed on the interface. It handles the logic behind each of the objects and manages the interface as a whole.

Below you can see the layout created in Illustrator in which I can modify and move elements around and quickly test various designs.

The plotter has been designed to allow it to hang on the back of a door

OTHER DRAWINGS //

Here are a collection of other test drawings I have worked with thus far to test out various elements from thin, small features, to different pen sizes to large filled in area.

WHAT’S NEXT? //

Now that the hardware is functional, there are a couple directions I would like to take this to continue to push it forward:

1. User Research - My hope is that this is a good piece of stimuli to start talking with people and understanding how they might interact with a device like this. I am certainly open to pivoting completely if I have missed the mark, but I think this early prototype could make for a good prompt for discussing how a tool like this could be useful to a small business.

2. GUI Design & Development - Most likely using the JSCut software as my basis, I would like to start streamlining the process of making and printing graphics so that it is accessible to really anyone. Ideally, the ability to create, process and print graphics would be integrated into one software program that would allows a store employee to update a sign with little know how. I have a lot of learning to do about how a user would ideally use a device like this.

3. Test the Limits - I believe the only real hardware flaw right now is the lack of limit switches (The Z Axis could probably use a rebuild too…). I would like to try to integrate an optical encoder to find a zero position on the Y axis and the Z Axis could probably use a feature on the pen carriage.

4. Aesthetic redesign - One of the learnings about the design of this prototype was that when it is suspended at the top of a door, the drawing process is a bit hidden. The interaction between the pen and the plastic is something that I really want to showcase and highlight, so I think in a redesign, I would figure out how to accent this more.