Having to type out “Willow SCARA Robot” a number of times for this post made my brain finally collapse those together into a nice name for this machine, “Will Scarlet” (will-scarlet). It seems to fit somehow as a moniker for this particular configutation of bits and bobs that becomes, through effort, a machine for creating “art.” A sort of nascent physicalized proto-AI without anything “artificial” really about it. It’s all ‘real’ – and all really controlled by me, using two syringes attached to tubing, one held in each hand.

Here are some process photos of conducting will-scarlet to make a piece of “art” using acrylic paint markers on canvas. But more important than creating “Art” or any semblance of it, simply trying to mechanically, and even scientifically observe what are the capabilities and limitations of this particular device. That was the goal of this initial exploratory session, and its documentation. Some highlights, but I’ll leave most of it on the Imgur linked above. There are also some raw unedited short videos you can watch there too (but which always refuse to embed in my blog posts).

Here is will-scarlet drawing the types of arcs and bows that his range of motion will allow him. I had really no idea what to expect on building this first prototype, so just winged my placement of different components, their relative lengths, etc.

And my components are all as primitive as possible. The arm segments and their pivots are all from willow branches that I grow here locally for basketry. So this robot is kind of an industrial byproduct of the basketmaking trade, in a way.

I’ve written about this in prior posts, but part of my exploration here is to make “biobots” which are as “natural” as possible – whatever that means – or that intentionally incorporate organic (and eventually living) elements. But beyond that, or alongside it on the third rail, I also want to figure out what kinds of “thinking machines” could survive a Butlerian jihad, a la Dune universe. Or like a robotically augmented art studio that could survive some kind of EMP/SHTF scenario. Not so much because I’m worried about those things beyond a kind of thematic motif, but because it’s a ghost world/Uncanny Valley of art that doesn’t seem too well-explored. I found plenty of people coming in from the opposite direction of turning to Arduino code and electronics and motors to produce art-making robots. But I didn’t find anything really like I’ve been doing: strip out the motors, pull out the code and electronics to the greatest extent possible, and put back the human at the helm. A more fluidly organic humanist cyborg augmented. Something that doesn’t rely on someone else’s cloud, API, and infrastructure: art robots for the here and now.

This is as far as I was able to get in one session. I don’t find it super-beautiful yet as a finished piece (even if that’s not expressly the point, I’d like to get it there), but was a good experiment. The plan is to continue layering on top. Hopefully after I can rig up some better controllers, as having one in each hand is rather awkward to smoothly control.

In fact, in the image above, you can see two sections of black marker in the topmost layer. At right is me using it with one in each hand to draw: angular, constrained by having to work the plungers up and down each using only the hand already holding they syringe body. Then my kid came home, and we each controlled one syringe kind of … independently together. And those line tracks are on the left side, and appear as much more fluid. So that’s very interesting.

In the current setup, since the range of motion is so constrained (make a note of this), I end up having to flip the canvas all around on the backing board in order to reach new areas. Not the worst experience in the world, as constraints like this tend to force you to discover new creative ways to get around them… But still, it will be nice to do a bigger better version of will-scarlet – possibly/obviously to be named robin-hood – where I’ve mastered a bit more the placement and sizing of components, allowing for a free range of motion, and a better manual method for controlling it.

ChatGPT suggests turning this into a four-bar linkage, which isn’t a bad idea, but will look less like a “cool wooden arm.” I’ll probably try that anyway. I also want to do a version with the arm in this configuration – minus the motors, ofc.

Also, going back to range of motion, I noticed that as the machine worked for a while, its range changed, and in one case became rather limited. Some of the tubing had popped off, and we’d lost fluid (water) in the hydraulics. It really reduced how the arm segment most affected could move. Once I got that sorted and refilled, it improved again.

Plus there was an issue where, toward the end of one of its poles of available movement, the paint marker would lift off the paper. Looking closer at the machine, it was obvious that it was caused by the irregularity of the willow branches of which the thing is composed. I’m not using machined metal tubing and smooth turning bearings, etc. in all this. I’m using pieces of my garden. So, since that’s an intentional choice, I see those irregularities as a good thing, as “proof of life” rather than as evidence of some failure that needs to be eradcated by ever more regular objects. This is what embodiment looks like. This is how we can tell it’s really “Art” with a capital A – not strictly the painted canvases that the machine outputs, but the entire socio-technical assemblage from which it is born, and through which it depicts in a very clear but also roundabout way, some essential thing about my life in this time and pleace.

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