SADbot: Window Gallery Exhibition

Eyebeam is pleased to present 

SADbot

, a site-specific installation created by 

Dustyn Roberts

 and 

Ben Leduc-Mills

 for the Eyebeam Window Gallery. Join us for an opening reception on 

Thursday, June 10, from 6–8PM

, taking place in conjunction with the opening of 

Re:Group: Beyond Models of Consensus

. 

SADbot

 will remain on view through Saturday, July 24. Join us for a closing reception on Thursday, July 22, 6-7:30PM, followed by 

Summer School @ Night: Open Retail

, moderated by Dustyn Roberts.

SADbot

 (The Seasonally Affected Drawing Robot) is a solar powered, interactive drawing machine.  It uses two 18.5'' x 13'' solar panels to power two stepper motors which allow the control of a pen in two dimensions.  SADbot takes input from people walking outside the gallery window by putting a set of sensors that can tell how much light they're getting (photocells) up against the inside of the window.  SADbot knows if someone is covering up one of the sensors, and can change its drawing behavior accordingly. As the Window Gallery does not receive direct sunlight, the artists set up an array of mirrors on the roof of Eyebeam to direct sunlight to a fixed mirror hanging off the roof that reflects light down to the solar cells in the gallery window. The solar cells, in turn, power the motors to run the drawing machine. Some of the components and techniques used in the installation will be featured in Dustyn's book, 

Making Things Move

, and everything will be documented and made open to the public. The artists are using open source platforms (Arduino, Processing, Sparkfun's EasyDriver motor boards), to make it easier for anyone to make their own SADbot.

Support SADbot on Kickstarter until June 30th: http://kck.st/azlbFp.

For documentation, see the SADbot project page.

About the Artists



Ben Leduc-Mills

 started out at Eyebeam in late 2007 while finishing his Master's Degree at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).  After graduating in 2008 he joined Eyebeam in a more permanent role as a web and systems engineer. His primary work has been on the re-design and restructuring of Eyebeam's website, intranet, and inventory systems, as well as a software lead on Project Roebling, an open-source software platform focused on connecting kids in refugee camps.  He's also interested in open hardware, democratizing the engineering process, and the design dynamics between the first and third worlds.  He'll be researching these themes full-time starting this fall at a PhD program at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the Craft Technology Lab. http://benatwork.cc/

Dustyn Roberts

 is mechanical engineer, teacher, author, and current Eyebeam resident living in NYC. She started her career at Honeybee Robotics as a design engineer on a project for NASA’s MSL mission, scheduled for launch in 2011. She founded Dustyn Robots as a consultancy in 2006 and continues to engage in work ranging from gait analysis to designing guided parachute systems.  In 2007 she developed a course for NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) entitled Mechanisms and Things That Move that is currently in its fourth year. This led to a book based on the class, Making Things Move, that's being published by McGraw-Hill for release in Fall 2010.  A version of SADbot will be published as a project in the book with directions and videos on the companion site. http://www.dustynrobots.com/