Egg Bot draws inspiration from old skool pen plotters

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Forget chocolate – real eggs decorated by robot is where it’s at this Easter

When I worked as a CAD operator back in the early nineties, we had a pen plotter. I remember being fascinated as it picked up different colour pens and went about its job of draughting complex engineering drawings at speed, line by line.

Well, that’s how I remember it from behind my rose tinted glasses. The reality was crying into the keyboard of my 486 as one of the pens ran out of ink right near the end of an hour-long plot.

This love/hate relationship with pen plotters is probably why I find the Egg Bot so fascinating. This open source ‘robot’ can draw directly onto egg shaped objects, such as golf balls, light bulbs and….er, eggs. You build the machine from a kit and you even get a free Sharpie pen to set you on your way.

With Easter coming up, forget the two for ones on chocolate eggs down your local supermarket; what your loved ones really want is a dozen of nature’s finest adorned with the craziest vector artwork you can imagine.

Egg Bot is being sold in the UK by Cool Components, who also stocks loads of crazy electronics kit for budding inventors – most of which I can’t even begin to understand. The London-based firm also sells an entry-level 3D printer – UP! Plus Personal Portable 3D Printer.

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