Cycloidal Pattern Drawing Machine
The cycloidal drawing machine is machine that is meant to serve students with developmental disabilities such a cerebral palsy. The machine aims to create nice and satisfying patterns with the simple touch of just one button for these students who often has trouble with fine motor skills. The goal of the drawing machine is to enable the students to get excited to create art despite their disabilities.
The machine consist of two main plates that sandwich the linear slider and the motors that move the gears which are responsible for most of the movements and drawings. The core of the machine consists of three gears with offset pivot points that rotates through the power of a brushless DC motor. On top of these pivots with spacers, are linear rails that move based on the constraints of these pivots. On one of these pivots has a mount that can accommodate for pens or pencils, or sharpies. The mounted pen and sharpies can then draw on top of the drawing plate which is mounted on the large middle gear. There are also guards around the gears to ensure that the gears don’t hurt any student’s hands.
The large base plates are made from quarter inch polycarbonate and the gears are cut out of nylon to ensure that there aren’t a lot of slop in the rotation of the wheels. Specialized 3D printed spacers are also made to ensure that the gear and rotate in a stable manner.
The linear slider helps with changing the patterns that comes out of the drawing machine and is controlled by another button that randomizes the position of the linear slider. The linear slider, the buttons, and the dc brushless motor is all controlled by a Pololu AStar-24 series microcontroller.
