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Build Your Own Electric Etch-A-Sketch

Posted by michael on from the reboot-by-shaking dept.

mhaisley writes "Ok, case mods are cool, monitor mods are nifty... but an Electric Etch-a-Sketch beats either. Students at Cornell University built an electronically controlled etch-a-sketch, controllable by a PC mouse. This was part of a group of class final projects featured by their instructor."

7 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. It's missing a way to erase it... by seanadams.com · · Score: 3, Informative

    I built one of these years ago... the thing mine had that theirs is missing is some way to flip it over to erase it.

    I used a big servo (made for a remote controlled boat) to flip it over. Also a solenoid to lock the screen in the vertical position so that the servo/solenoid only need to be energized while the screen is being shaken.

  2. the art of motion control by xbryanx · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think the most interesting thing here is the wide range of projects of their class page and how they have come up with inventive ways of using microcontrollers (sure some of them aren't new but that doesn't mean they aren't cool work for a class of students).

    But if you think this is cool then you should check out the work of Bruce Shapiro. He's got a stepper motor controlled Etch a Sketch, but that's only the begining. How about a home built two axis plasma cutter, or a an old dental mill that turns 2d pictures into 3d sculptures.

    --
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  3. A bit underwhelming.... by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 3, Informative

    Is that all there is to it? A mouse moving the stylus of an etch-a-sketch? Now if it incorporated a "drag and drop" or "selective erase" feature, it might be interesting. As it is, this would make a neat high school science fair project, but a final project for an EE degree?

    Why was a microcontroller even NEEDED here? Rewiring the mouse to provide the raw X and Y encoder wheel pulses, and applying them right to the stepper drivers would give substantially the same results without the MCU and all the programming. If the stepper drivers need step and direction signals rather than quadrature pulse trains, run the encoder signals through one of the LSI/CSI encoder interface chips to get whatever you want without writing code or burning it onto a chip. A programmable solution for something this simple seems like complexity for complexity's sake...

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  4. Re:The original plotter by Animats · · Score: 3, Informative
    No, the first computer controlled plotter was made from an analog X/Y pen recorder. The analog computer for the Nike missile launch system had one, as did the Atlas missile guidance computer.

    There was the Iconarama, which was an Etch-A-Sketch like device attached to a projector. This was the first large-screen computer controlled display, and was used by NORAD in the 1950s. The device scratched transparent areas onto a slide, projecting icons (usually aircraft tracks) on a screen. When the screen became too cluttered, a slide changer loaded a new blank slide. Two complete systems aimed at the same screen were used, to avoid a blank period during slide change and redraw and to provide redundancy.

    The Iconarama was one of a long series of early military attempts to build large-screen displays. There were wall-sized plotters. CRT/film/photo processor/projector combinations. The Eidophor oil-film projector.

    Eidophor technology first appeared in 1943, and there are still a few units in use. No other technology until DLP could reach the 4000 lumen light level of an Eidophor unit.

  5. Re:COOOOL by UniverseIsADoughnut · · Score: 2, Informative

    When I took a class on controls a few years ago there was a class project you had to do, build something that you would control. Could be anything. One of the things the prof wouldn't let us do is this. It had been done so many times before and had a couple etch-a-sketches sitting in the cabinent with motors allready on them.

    This is something students have probably done for such projects for 15 years.

  6. check this out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    There are far more impressive projects that students in this class have made:
    http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/Fin alProjects/s2004/aeh28/Website/index.htm

    Check out the rest of the projects students in this class have made: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/Fin alProjects/

    Keep in mind that students in ece476 only have about a month to do their final project and that is on top of all their other classes' final projects.

  7. Done at U. of Delaware also by Prof.+Pi · · Score: 2, Informative
    One time in the late nineties it was a course project for a sophomore computer architecture course in the EE department at the University of Delaware. One of them was kept assembled and is still sometimes used for a Parents' Day demo. It had stepper motors and could draw really nice curves.

    Cornell has turned itself into a Microsoft shop, so it's appropriate that they're all excited about something that others did years before.