Airbrush Actuator Complete

It is amazing how much an invitation from the White House can speed up development.  Long hours this weekend went into getting a working airbrush prototype.  While paint brushes will remain the primary mark making device in the Neural Jet, it will be cool to have them backed up by five airbrushes with the ability to quickly paint backgrounds.  

Also cool that we went with the servos instead of something like a solenoid to control air flow.  With our servos we can actuate the air coming out to 16 different pressures.  So mixing becomes possible, and since we have 5 airbrushes on the paint head, the Neural Jet will be able to paint over 1,000,000 colors (16^5).  Yeah this part of the project really is just re-inventing a printer, but coupled with the other mark making tools that are coming, it will be on the next level.  You can see the prototype in action below.

Neural Jet Modular Paint Head Complete

We have finished printing what we think will be the final paint tray. In the image above you can see how it will be oriented to the canvas when it is being used to paint. Coincidentally enough, we arrived at the final design on the Model T - Like Henry Ford's car.

(Model T) can hold multiple paint brushes and up to five airbrushes, with modules that fit three different types of airbrushes.  People sometimes have a hard time imagining what we are showing in the photos, so I have included the following schematic that shows how the 5 airbrushes fit together.

The empty slots in the graphic above can be fitted with just about any mark making device, though I am partial to paint brushes.  The reason we want to use paint brushes is that we have yet to find anything that can make marks similar to those in the image below.  And thats what we are ultimately after.

Initial 3D Sketches of Paint Head Complete

Though its probably obvious, the name of this new robot is a blend of Neural Nets and InkJets.  The main idea being that it will use artificial intelligence to spray paint onto a canvas with jets of air. This initial sketch shows how this will be accomplished with an array of six airbrushes. Final design  will include traditional brushes as well, but we will build that around this airbrush array as our experience is that paint delivery is the most difficult part of any painting robot.  That is our primary goal, the delivery of paint to the brush and canvas.

Six airbrushes are being used so that a full color gamut can be achieve. The pigments in five of the air brushes will be cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and white. The final airbrush will either have a "guest" pigment, or a paint thinner, perhaps water?  Not sure yet.  

The two most interesting aspect of this are why white and a thinning agent are being included.

The reason for the white is that the Neural Jet will be using creative feedback loops (see my TEDx Talk for details). This robot will need the ability to both add and subtract saturation.  Unlike an inkjet printer that knows exactly what it will be printing and uses the white of the page, this robot will be re-evaluating each brush stroke and mark continuously, and repainting areas constantly.  As such it will need the ability to lighten areas, and even erase by white washing.  

The reason for the thinning agent is many fold, most importantly for brush washing and texture.  We are still working out the final details, but this robot will have a brush and brushes need cleaning, so it would be nice to be able to apply pigments and clean them from the brush with this paint head.  Another reason for a sixth airbrush is that it might be interesting to have a mystery fluid that simply gets mixed in once in a while to add texture.  I am not sure what exactly will be needed, but I just feel like later in the process I will be wishing I had an extra airbrush, so I am including it in the initial design.  Hope I don't end up needing two extra airbrush heads.

First Robotic Head Mock-Up and Updates

As I paint 3 paintings for the backers eacha week, I am also making mock-ups of the new robotic head that I will be adding to the robot. Above is the first mock-up.  I put it together only to realize that there were lots of problems with the design. But thats cool 'cause I have a whole load of friends looking at this and helping iron things out - and that part is turning out to be more fun than expected.  

The main problem with this design that I didn't see until I built the mock-up is that half of the airbrushes would be upside down when mounted on my robot at a 45 degreen angle. So only 3 of the airbrushed would really work correctly.  I need 5 at a minimum.

Also I showed the design to my friend and colleague Mark, the same one who I mentioned in previous post that printed his own 3D printer.  He suggested I make each airbrush holder modular - and have them snap together when ready to paint. Have I mentioned he also has done work at NASA - so I take his advice really seriously and really like the concept of a modular robotic head that snaps together.  It would make swapping colors really fast and easy, maybe color changes can even be done robotically if we design it right.

Another cool thing about Mark is that he is into sharing all of this. So we spoke briefly and decided that when we came up with a design and plans, we would post it on our site so anyone could build their own version of whatever we come up with. 

Will try and get another mock-up done this week and post it along with the next set of paintings in schedule next week.