The Robot Factory project by Niklas Roy showcases how small robots can become creative artists, blending robotics, generative art, and human perception. These robots started as a playful experiment but quickly turned into a deep investigation into how simple mechanical behaviors can produce complex visual effects and even evoke big ideas from psychology and artificial intelligence.

Imagine a robot built from 3D-printed parts, tiny motors, and an ordinary marker pen. Each robot is compact and low-cost, driven by two stepper motors with O-rings for wheels and an Arduino Nano as its brain. The pen sits at the center, ready to draw as the robot carefully moves across a whiteboard or a sheet of paper. Early versions moved slowly and carefully drew lines, but the design kept evolving. By bringing the wheels closer to the pen, the robot could spin and turn faster, though sometimes it lost a bit of its precise orientation. Despite these little quirks, the robots were surprisingly good at keeping their position and direction using only basic trigonometry and no external references.

Designer: Niklas Roy

What truly brings these robots to life is their behavior. Some versions use bumpers and switches to detect the edge of the drawing surface or bump into other robots, while others use a light sensor to spot lines already drawn. This lets the robots not only draw but also respond to their environment. For example, when a robot crosses a line, it can lift or lower its pen, creating breaks that add depth and visual interest to the piece. This simple rule creates artwork that our brains read as layered, with some lines in the foreground and others receding into the background.

This playful interaction connects directly to Gestalt psychology, a field that explores how humans perceive shapes and patterns. When the robots draw, they unintentionally echo principles like grouping, continuity, and figure-ground separation, which are the very factors that help us make sense of what we see. It is a reminder that even basic machines, following simple rules, can create images that feel alive and meaningful.

The history behind these robots also links to early artificial intelligence and the educational programming language Logo, famous for its turtle robots that children could program to draw on paper. Like those early turtles, the Robot Factory’s bots move forward, turn, sense, and draw, but with modern twists and accessible components. Building one is a rewarding project, and with a handful of cheap parts and some simple code, anyone can join in the fun.

Even as the project revisits ideas from decades past, the results feel fresh and inspiring. Watching a group of these robots roam, draw, and interact is both a technical and artistic experience. The lines they create are more than random marks; they are a record of decision-making, exploration, and the surprising beauty that comes from mixing rules and randomness. The Robot Factory proves that you do not need a high-tech lab to explore the boundaries between art and engineering. Sometimes, all it takes is a marker, some motors, and a bit of curiosity to discover just how creative a little robot can be.

The post Tiny robots become “artists” in Robot Factory first appeared on Yanko Design.