Introduction: Dispensing Paint Onto Fabric Using Robot

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This project is created as a course assignment at the California State University, Long Beach; taught by Behnaz Farahi: DESN 551: Materials, Tools, and Techniques of Prototype.

Group Members: Khoa Le, Michael Shatto, Pedro Mateo

For this project we were learning to control and dial in the dispensing system and create line drawing using the robotic arm.

Supplies

Tools:

Adobe Illustrator (create vector lines)

Tulip glow in the dark dimensional fabric paint

Robotic Arm

Air Compressor

Air Regulator

Syringe

Musline Fabric (for testing and calibrating)

T-Shirt

Step 1: Create Line Drawing

The first step is to create the line drawing on Illustrator. After creating the line drawing, save it as AI files (the native vector file type for Adobe Illustrator).

Step 2: Insert Line Drawing and Readjust

Drop the AI file into Rhino, create a 'crv' on Grasshopper and connect the line drawing to the 'crv'. Readjust the line drawing on the XYZ plane according on the drawing surface.

Step 3: Calibrate the Drawing

  1. Pour the paint into the syringe about 3/4 of the way full (eliminate chances of a big paint dumb once you turn on the air regulator)
  2. Tap the syringe (eliminate any pocket of air in the tube)
  3. calibrate to the specific millimeter off of the surface you're drawing on.
  4. calibrate the PSI (ours was 1-2 psi)

During this calibrating process, test and practice on muslin. They are cheap fabric and you can wipe off any failed test using tissue paper and reused the same piece.

Step 4: Refine Drawing

We decided to go back in and draw "DESN 551" instead of just "DESN" since we finished the drawing quicker than we thought and to represent the class by showing what we were able to do in the class.

We noticed having extra text wasted too much paint and it would went out before the drawing was finished. So we had to reduce the text size and lower the syringe closer to the T-Shirt so the paint would come out thinner, using less paint.

Step 5: Paint on T-shirt

For the final step, we use a T-shirt as the surface to draw one. We wanted to wear the shirt to our end of the year show instead of merely displaying the painting on a table.