Because of this, I had to switch what I was working on. Looking throughout my apartment I found a little fan that swivels from side to side. I figured that if there was a way to prop it on its back I could make it so that the robot is moving the surface which is drawn on. I figured out how to prop up the fan so that it was not being stopped by the ground from swiveling. I basically had to figure out the perfect angle of leverage while also using an object that I could bring to the exhibit (I at first was using the cross supports from the legs of a chair because they were the right height). I then found a square basket that the support of the fan fit into just right. Then I had to find a box to use. The first box that I wanted to use actually was just a bit to heavy so that the fan would be stuck at one side and tick each time it tried to swivel back the other way (its kind of a cheap fan). So I had to find a smaller, lighter box. Then I had to decide what material I would use for the drawing. I decided to use pastel because they are soft and i feel that they could leave a mark if let rolled around a bit. There was some issues with that, and i figure that I had to carve the pastels into little balls so they would roll around more and wouldn't get stuck easily into one corner. After I eliminated all the kinks from the robot and once it finally started working, I let the fan run for about an hour and saw the end result:
Weirdly enough, this to me looked a bit like a plot graph of an insane amount of data. It is interesting to see the markings and how one color, the yellowish orange, in particular stood out. This project really challenged me and it was an extremely important learning experience. This taught me how to think critically and carefully with the materials that I had and it made me realize that failing is necessary for improving a project.