A two month long project that fulfills an 8 year long quest to know once and for all what the original writing instrument was for the famous Maillardet Automaton, which is housed at the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia. The machine was created in the 1790’s, almost certainly as a collaboration between the shops of Jaquet-Droz and Maillardet ~ with the majority of the mechanism designed and manufactured under Jaquet-Droz and the programming (a very large bank of 3-axis cams) created by Maillardet. The automaton is essentially an elaborate 3 dimensional pantograph, and so I use a simple 2-D pantograph in a proof of concept project to replicate the way the Maillardet Automaton originally made its elaborate renderings with very high crisp detail using varying line widths. I conclude this one as Q.E.D. – Quod Erat Demonstrandum!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.