The Da Vinci Drawmaton, A Reminiscence From The Renaissance

He integrates mechanical features into pop-up books that change and move whenever you read them. He has had several appearances on the bestseller list by the New York Times. He is Robert Sabuda, an extraordinary paper engineer and also a big fan of da Vinci. A brand new challenge has been set for him this time: reconstructing a version of drawing robot by Leonardo da Vinci and putting it on sale.

The robot whose name is Da Vinci Drawmaton can move his robotic hand on paper by using geared wheels. Just like an Etch-a-sketch artist, without having to raise its pen, the robot can draw pictures, create beautiful and wild designs in a unique way that has not been seen ever since the Renaissance.

Sabuda said a group of da Vinci's robot work admirers called the Leonardo da Vinci Robot Society contacted him to discuss a particular project. He also mentioned that there has always been a rumor that besides being able to do human things like sitting, standing, playing drums and shaking hands, the Robot Knight was said to be able to do many other tasks.

Drawing was among one of these tasks. Sabuda had been asked if he would be interested in this project, to reserve engineer this skill and create a robot with drawing ability. With hard work and the help of Codex Atlanticus, in which Leonardo da Vinci’s robotic thoughts were carefully noted, he was able to build a robotic arm.

The arm has been put on Kickstarter fundraising platform and gathered a lot of attention. For early birds, the price is set at $99. With this price, you can get the robot kit and 2 sets of Programming Petalos to make the Robot create 2 single line pictures. With his background of three generations of carpenters, Sabuda made the robotic arm out of wood. Just like one of his pop-up books, it is carefully decorated and designed.

The project is considered to be a kind of an analog computer. With a set of wooden disks driving the arm to perform its actions, the system is programmable.

Sabuda said that since da Vinci thought that a pair of wooden discs looked similar to a flower’s petals, he decided to call it ‘Petalos’. The ‘Petalos’ can store one kilobyte of information. Information is sent down to the arm and hand of the robot once the Petalos are rotated. Then it will draw a picture. It was a challenging task to reserve engineer since the material of da Vinci’s robots are wood and some small pieces of metal.

The project has finished half of its journey until it reaches its funding point and will be available for shipment by June. How fascinating it is that a little reminiscence of da Vinci could introduce people to robotics and mechanics.