Children already spend a lot of time looking at screens, so if they can be taught to draw using a physical pen and paper, so much the better. That's the thinking behind DrawBo, a wall-mounted robot designed to give your kids art lessons.
Parents start by hanging a sheet of paper, a dry-erase board or some other drawing surface on the wall, then applying two included adhesive-backed hooks to either side of it at the top. They also stick a pen or pencil into a receptacle on the butterfly-shaped robot's body.
Two loop-ended cords are then hung on the hooks (one per hook), each cord running onto a separate motorized reel inside the robot. By selectively pulling in and releasing those cords, DrawBo is subsequently able to move itself vertically and horizontally across the drawing surface, deploying the pen to draw lines as it does so. It draws entire images in this fashion, one line at a time.
The device pauses after finishing each line, though, allowing the child/student to copy it by hand on a sketchpad of their own. Utilizing an accompanying app, parents not only choose the image to be drawn (from a library), but they also select the length of the pauses, based on their child's age and drawing skills. They can alternatively take manual control, not allowing the robot to proceed to the next line until they prompt it.
DrawBo was created by a California-based team of engineers, who previously worked at places such as Yahoo, Oracle and Microsoft. It's currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, where a pledge of US$149 will get you one – assuming it reaches production. The planned retail price is $200.
It can be seen in action, in the video below. And if you like wall-drawing robots, you might also want to check out the existing Scribit.
Source: Kickstarter