http://artbots.org/2005/ (ArtBots)
ArtBots is an international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots. Each year we publish an open call for submissions, inviting artists from around the world to send us information about their work. No firm rules exist on the types of work that can participate; if you think it's a robot and you think it's art, we encourage you to submit. The final list of participants is a mix of works selected from the open call submissions and additional artists invited by the ArtBots curators.

Hopefully I will be able to enter some time? but I still have a lot of learning to do first.

These are some of the entries.
More interesting stuff from Bruce Shapiro http://www.taomc.com
Ribbon Dancer
http://artbots.org/2005/participants/RibbonDancer/RibbonDancer_web.jpg
I was searching for easy DIY robotics projects that kids could tackle, and tried mounting one stepper motor directly to the shaft of another-- producing a very simple, two-axis, spherical coordinate system (one motor controls latitude, the other longitude).
Link to films and more info http://www.taomc.com/art_machines/ribbondancer.htm


Translator II: Grower by Sabrina Raaf http://www.raaf.org/
http://artbots.org/2005/participants/TranslatorIIGrower/TranslatorIIGrower_web.jpg

It hugs the room's walls and responds to the carbon dioxide levels in the air by drawing varying heights of 'grass' on the walls in green ink.



Wave Puppet by William Tremblay & Rob Gonsalves http://www.williamtremblay.com/art/wavepuppet
http://artbots.org/2005/participants/WavePuppet/WavePuppet_web.jpg

Translating powerful physical forces to an anthropomorphically comprehensible and safely inanimate form, Wave Puppet is a marionette of the ocean's surface directed by the math that underlies all waves.


There are other interesting entries at http://artbots.org/2005/ (ArtBots)
jm

I love this sort of stuff. If only I could get payed for doing it, I would make a career out of it. Thanks for the links.

Benny,

Have a look at this . . . It may keep you busy on a rainy day.

http://www.taomc.com/studio_machines/egg_plotter.htm

Hello ynneb and imaginerring
Now that would be a job!!! I really love this stuff two, and am glad to see a lot more of it being made. I am always so impress with what people can do if they put there mind to it. When I saw hektor for the first time I didn’t get how it did it with just the two motors. Then I realised how it moved which is hard to explain but really Inventive. Reading thought the documentation they were going to use four motors in each of the corners but from how I read it couldn’t calibrate them which caused the spraying part to the shake the and then got the idea to remove the bottom two. Its worth having a look at the film to get the idea http://www.hektor.ch/Documentation/Hektor.mov/

I haven’t got round to trying the eggbot but did do the bit about getting LED’s to flash with the parallel port with my little brother we had it up and running in about ten minutes (let the computer say, hello world) and loads of different combinations running within a hour. It’s a really easy way to show that computers can be made to control thing easily.
james

I've built a number of 'Bots, ranging from basic Brattenburg machines, to a 1.2 metre Radio Controlled R2D2 style. Also a 4 Motor/4 Tracked Mobile 'Bot controlled with an onboard Laptop through the Parallel Port using Qbasic. I've enclosed a photo of the menagerie, (A bolt of Robots??), taken about a year ago.

Great to see photos thanks,
Nice to see some recycling with the laptop, I think it’s a shame that more things are not put to good use instead of landfill. I am planning to design something similar to this (http://www.scribblerrobot.com/ContentPages/Gallery.aspx) but more modular so different senses and out puts can be added. With multiple pens which can lift up and down. So it can draw pitchers on the flaw.

Here's another shot of 'TrackBot2' under construction. It shows a better view of the track mechanism which was recycled from old mainframe computer data tape drivers. I had a camera mounted on the front at the time of the photo, as I was trialling a radio-controlled system using the camera & my TV as feedback.
Also a photo of 'TrackBot1' which uses the same track units in a more conventional manner.

I know that I will not be able to resist the temptation to build my own egg plotter.
Thanks for the links.

Jason