This Twitter-Enabled Robotic Arm Turns SXSW Selfies Into Art

To promote its newest show “Genius,” a series about the life of Albert Einstein, National Geographic decided to build a robotic chalkboard in collaboration with Pittsburgh design agency Deeplocal.

The chalkboard — which made its debut at SXSW — featured a robotic arm along with a special algorithm that turned selfies into drawings, using Einstein’s very own handwritten equations as pixels.

In terms of hardware, the robot was equipped with a proprietary controller, a servo motor/drive, and an Arduino-based track. According to our friends at Deeplocal:

Messages were sent over serial to an Arduino Micro in the servo control box, which told the Arduino to pulse pins on the servo drive dictating what position to move the track to. Once the track reached its position, the Arduino sent back a message so that the robot knew what time to start drawing.

Although SXSW visitors saw the robotic arm in action, anyone was able to create their own portraits by sending a headshot to @NatGeoChannel via Twitter with the #GeniusBoard hashtag.

[h/t Creativity Online]