Creating a Simple ‘Robot’
Katherine Diemert, &NOW Artist Resident at Factory Media Centre, Hamilton, ON.
Spring 2020
Katherine Diemert was FMC’s &Now Artist Resident from April – May 2020 Resident Artist. FMC’s Production Residency is an opportunity for artists and creators to utilize the space and resources at FMC to produce a new work or continue a developing body of work. Click here to learn more.
Throughout this residency Katherine worked with video projection manipulations using a variety of analog materials, documenting these effects through notes, photographs, and videos. One of these projects included Katherine’s Pixel Buddies.
In this casual tutorial, Katherine walks through the process for creating the ‘robot’ creatures that feature in her piece Rogue Pixels. This project is based off of an easy and popular STEAM kid’s project (Click here to view an example), and requires only a power source, motor, and switch to build a simple circuit.
This tutorial was originally live-streamed on Instagram; this video was pre-recorded and edited into a slightly condensed form.
List of Materials used in this tutorial:
- DC Motor 1.5V-3V 24 000 RPM (a common toy/hobbyist motor)
- Battery Holder with x2 AA Batteries
- Switch (if not built into Battery Holder)
- Hot glue
- Electrical wire, if battery holder does not come with any pre-attached
- Motor mount / anchor *
- Paperclip *
- Approximately a metre of sturdy wire (for ‘legs’ and ‘antennae’) *
- Lenticular Lens *
* These materials can be swapped out by you to create something custom, or sourced from reused/found materials around your house!
Click here to see the electrical parts from the EUDAX set which Katherine used. These pieces are not necessary, and many of these parts can be found in hobby stores or other electronic stores.
Click here to see the lenticular lenses that were used in this tutorial.
Some extra parts which were mentioned in the tutorial:
Click here to buy the slow (100 RPM) motor Katherine suggests.