This is the ultimate example of where art and technology collide, and one muralist got to have the pleasure of being the first to experience it. The days of using only hand-held spray paint cans to make a mural are over.
Bot and Dolly teamed up with Chevy and made a car that doubles as artistic assistant for painting wall murals using some incredible technology and really cool tools. Sounds crazy, right? Yeah, it is crazy.
Crazy awesome.
A Car That Paints?
Yes. A car that paints. While the truly artistic mind of a real person is needed to design and spear-head the whole mural, the car helps in some pretty amazing ways. Basically there are three parts to the whole system: a paint sprayer, a paint blaster, and a robotic arm sprayer.
Paint Sprayer
This component of the robotic art car is a large cylindrical arm that extends out the passenger side window. The nozzle on the end is connect to a tube of paint, and as the nozzle shoots out air, the paint shoots out as well, providing a nice base coat. The arm is controlled by the artist as he slowly drives the car beside the wall. He can maneuver it up and down and side to side until he’s got the base coat he wants.
Paint Blaster
The paint blaster is perhaps the funnest component of the entire car. I mean, who doesn’t like blasting things out of a cannon and into a wall? It has the same basic concept as a potato gun, except instead of shooting potatoes, it’s shooting paint projectiles. And when they crash into the wall, they make some pretty cool marks.
The blaster has a camera on top of it that acts as the aiming mechanism. All the artist has to do is choose a color, take a look at camera feed from a panel screen on the dashboard, find the spot he wants to hit, and…fire!
Now really, who wouldn’t have a blast with that? (pun completely intended)
Robotic Arm
Now, this is where the really cool technology comes in. The robotic arm component pops out of the trunk of the car while it’s parked in the right spot in front of the mural. It, too, has a nozzle on the end to spray paint, except it’s smaller and more precise.
All the artist has to do is press a button, and the robotic arm will paint a pre-programmed picture onto the wall with incredible precision and accuracy that no human arm could match. And while it’s not at lightning speed, it still does it pretty darn quick, considering how good the result looks. All the while, the artist is able to paint all of the “artsier” and more random elements onto other parts of the wall.
A Beautiful Collaboration
The result of all of this is a fantastic and impressive-looking piece of art stretching across the wall of a building. It’s artist and robot working together. Technology and human collaborating to create something beautiful. And on top of all that, it’s super fun.
Now that’s modern art at its finest.
About The Author:
Brianna Martin is a freelance writer from Lancaster, Pennsylvania who has been published across the web. The topics she has covered span from technological advancements to industrial operations and solutions to business practices and more, providing information and insight into the world of robotics for companies like Kuka.
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