A Clever Mechanical Drawing Arm Kit Inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15th Century ‘Robot Knight’

Scientifics Online has created the “Drawmaton” a wonderful hand-powered drawing arm kit that takes its inspiration from the iconic 15th century Robot Knight by Leonardo da Vinci. The machine features different patterns (petals) that can be interchanged for various designs and gears that engage a rotating wheel to power the drawing arm. The kit comes in three different styles – Robot, Gambler, and Knight.

Many consider da Vinci’s robots to be the oldest examples of an early proto-computer because they contained hardware, the robot itself, and software, wooden cams, which were read-only and interchangeable. Leonardo called these wooded cams ‘petals’ as they reminded him of petals on a flower. A set of programming pedals for our Drawmaton stores 1 kilobit of pre-defined motion data. When the petals complete one full rotation, information is sent down the robot’s arm and into the hand which draws the picture with the pen.

via The Awesomer