cdtobie t1_iye5xbh wrote on November 30, 2022 at 6:57 PM

I’m an artist. But also a developer. I’d be way more interested in developing a rig to Etch-a-Sketch the Mona Lisa for me (or whatever else I wanted) than do so it manually.

Pikajane OP t1_iye9ypj wrote on November 30, 2022 at 7:23 PM

in theory this would work since it's a plotter. In practice every Etch A Sketch has its own minute mechanical flaws and idiosyncrasies which makes it so that the knobs sometimes lock up and skip at random parts which would make mass automation difficult. On top of that, each Etch A Sketch has varying line weights etc so it's hard to pick units that consistently function exactly the same both mechanically and cosmetically.

People have been able to program some really cool stuff with arduinos but this level of detail would probably take more effort than it's worth for reproducing.

IvorTheEngine t1_iyer8ei wrote on November 30, 2022 at 9:13 PM

There are lots of CNC etch-a-sketch projects around. It's a really good way to learn the basics of CNC and robotics.

https://www.geekmomprojects.com/etchabot-a-cnc-etch-a-sketch/

Then you get projects like this: https://www.v1engineering.com/zenxy-v2-sand-table/

cdtobie t1_iyewjl2 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 9:48 PM

As for the ideosyncracies; calibration was what I specialized in, the fun part would be baselining the device and creating calibration corrections from the target print. I’d be even more interested if there was an RGB Etch-a-Sketch, so I could color calibrate it as well!