Engineer Sarah Spencer hacks a vintage machine with the help of Rasperry Pi and the Adafruit Learning System. Spencer’s upgraded printer can knit massive and intricate tapestries.
The device—a Brother KM950i from the ’80s—ticks all of Spencer’s boxes: It can accept an image with more than two colors in any row, from a computer, over the network. And, best of all, it does all the work, hands free (mostly).
“As a woman in tech, I wanted to create something which would engage young minds in an area of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics),” Spencer told Space.com.
The “Knitting Network Printer,” as she calls it, was souped up with modern hardware (Arduino and Raspberry Pi) and software (mostly Python, a bit of PHP and JavaScript).
Spencer has been working with knitting machines since stumbling upon a 1970s model at a charity shop in 2012.
After six years of tinkering with the technology, the hobbyist flew to England for last week’s Electromagnetic Field Camp (EMF Camp), where she showed off the ultimate astronomy-based piece: Stargazing: A Knitted Tapestry
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!