"Drawing" robot

2006

CD:Masaki Fujihata
D: Tatsuya Matsui, Hiroyuki Hoshino, Marika Hayashi
TC: CENKEN Corporation, SGI Japan, Ltd.
P:Masao Okamoto
CL: Japan Science and Technology Agency

“Crest21Art” is a specified project to “create arts of the 21st century based on digital media” for the research field of “basic technologies to support the creation of digital media contents” of Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) adopted by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in 2004. The project is led by Professor Masaki Fujihata of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and is conducted in cooperation with Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Saitama University, and Kinki University. As part of the scientific research into “Drawing,” we were in charge of the fundamental design of an experimental robot with an “arm” that paints as a “hand” and another “arm” that collects visual data as “eyes.” It was required that this device can be experimented on a table, and is light enough to be easily carried. The basic structure is that the right arm with 6-degree of freedom as a hand and the left arm with 5-degree of freedom as eyes are connected by a cylinder-shaped shoulder. We designed the arms to be folded and put away compactly, and put a sliding counterweight on the shoulder.