3okapis developed an interesting drawing machine out of LEGO bricks, quite different from the traditional LEGO plotters. Instead of moving a piece of paper and a pen to draft some drawings on a fixed frame, the whole machine moves over a plane surface, like a tracked vehicle.
The results are not perfect but still excellent for a LEGO concept. 
In this other video below, you may also follow step wise instructions to build your own copy.
From the same author you can find also another videos from a 2nd version (and 3rd one seems also on the way), but somehow I preferred to show the original one.
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2 comments:
it definitely needs some tweaking( that is the worst drawing of a giraffe i ever saw!), but both the concept and the execution are excellent. marvelously minimal. really, quite a handsome little device.
i really like the style of the instructional vid. having now seen this one, i'm a little embarrassed by my own clumsy attempt at an instructional.
KEvron
It has the same philosophy as the "Turtle Robot" in the first Control Centre set: a differential drive to move a pen over the paper.
3okapis' version, however, has the benefit of being able to lift the pen from the paper so it doesn't have to draw only continuous lines. But I don't think the advantage of allowing the pen to be at a variable distance from its centre of rotation is worth the extra complexity, especially since the centre of rotation, and therefore precision, on tracked drives (and skid-steer, too) depends a lot on the vehicle's weight distribution.
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