It's no secret that we're big fans of
completely impractical mods; sure we like the ones that look good or do something useful, but at the end of the day, all we really want to do is watch a cool video that doesn't make us think too hard. Take "Evil Mad Scientist" and atomic physicist Windell Oskay's DIY "e-paper"
drawbot, basically an Allen Plotomatic 715 analog X-Y data recorder directed by an off-the-shelf microcontroller to sketch letters and shapes on a stripped-down Fischer Price Doodle Pro. The video below describes this build much better than we ever could, although the lack of specific programming instructions makes this less of a how-to and more of a mini-documentary. Oskay refers to his creation as e-paper, and though it is based on magnetics and not electronics, he points out that it does indeed share many of the same qualities as the
Sony Readers and
iRex iLiads of the world: high-contrast, daylight-readability, flexibility, and the ability to erase images or maintain them without electricity. Still, even though this rig is hundreds of dollars cheaper than commercial e-books, we'd rather spend the extra loot in exchange for pages that render in under five minutes.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
akijikan @ Mar 15th 2007 11:00AM
Doodle pro? Try MAGNA Doodle Pro...FTW also.
Matt B @ Mar 15th 2007 11:23AM
They going to have the robot tackle Lite-Brite next?
zoara @ Mar 15th 2007 12:09PM
Call me paranoid, but if you look very, very carefully at that image, you can just make out a worrying message. I don't think that these robots are to be trusted.
Nobuyuki Idei @ Mar 15th 2007 12:34PM
I, for one, welcome... ahh F it.
Chrissy @ Mar 15th 2007 1:31PM
Oh, if only that photo showed what it was going to finish writing; we may never know what the robots plan on ruling someday. For all we know, it could be worms, and I know I don't want robots ruling my worms.
Wonderboy @ Mar 15th 2007 1:43PM
It's "words", Robots will rule the words... which means we all need to learn an alternative means of communication.
Maybe body language... but I guess that's too imprecise. I guess we'll have to go telepathic.
Do you know what I'm thinking now?
Charles @ Mar 15th 2007 2:35PM
They can have WOR, but planet Earth is ours!
Lenore @ Mar 16th 2007 12:30AM
About "the lack of specific programming instructions," the code, along with some examples, is downloadable from the main story page.