Made only of wood and a few pieces of metal, da Vinci's Drawmaton is an ancestor of the programmable computer.
The machine is capable of reading 1kb of analog memory via wooden “petalos” which, to da Vinci, resembled
the petals of flowers, hence their name.
The programming “petalos” are easily switched out so the Drawmaton can draw an endless
variety of single line images. A few turns of the hand knob completes a full rotation of the
programming “petalos” and the drawing is complete. You can insert your own drawing tool into
the robot’s hand, place any paper into the draw area, turn the knob and the drawing is revealed.
The machine is capable of reading 1kb of analog memory via wooden “petalos” which, to da Vinci, resembled
the petals of flowers, hence their name.
The programming “petalos” are easily switched out so the Drawmaton can draw an endless
variety of single line images. A few turns of the hand knob completes a full rotation of the
programming “petalos” and the drawing is complete. You can insert your own drawing tool into
the robot’s hand, place any paper into the draw area, turn the knob and the drawing is revealed.
Swans Programming Petals sold separately as part of additional 4 set. Go to SHOP to order.
It all began with a quarter...
The making of da vinci's drawmaton
(please be patient while animated .gifs load)
Who knew the weight of a Drawmaton's arm was so important? When da Vinci's Drawamaton was first being designed, all the prototypes were much smaller than the final machine. The location of where the drawing tool was supposed to go was unknown (which is why there are three holes in the arm prototype above). Most of the time the drawing tool never touched the paper when the machine was activated, so one of the designers taped a quarter to the top of the arm to add weight. The road to success was slowly being revealed.
The early prototypes didn't use any metal or plastic pieces, everything was made from laser cut wood or wooden dowels. The Programming Petals were constructed of many layers of heavy card stock glued together for sake of ease but they couldn't match the specific requirements of laser cut wood. The first attempt at drawing a face is shown above. The original Programming Petal design for the face did not look anything like the final drawing so this attempt was dubbed "Bundson Honeydew" after the 1970's The Muppets Show character.
It goes without saying that one of the designers, the quiet and dedicated Chloe, would attempt to get the machine to write a word. So why not her autograph?! This is the first word da Vinci's Drawmaton every wrote.
Here's the second, and only other word, da Vinci's Drawmaton has been programmed to spell. During the initial design period, the drawing tool was a sharpened piece of artist's charcoal. No one can remember why it was used (maybe because it was so light?) but it was terrible, scratching its way across the paper with a awful noise (like dragging one's fingernails across a chalkboard). Eventually if was discovered that a simple ball point ink pen worked best because the inked ball smoothly ran across the paper, like a skater on ice!