Pixel Art Printer

Rapid Prototyping ⋅ Iterative Design

Pixel Art Printer

The pixel art printer is a working, electronic prototype of a printer that uses colored markers to create 2D pixel art images on a piece of paper. In this project, I designed, prototyped and built the pixel art printer from scratch.

Click here to jump to the video demo.

My Role

Conception and brainstorming
Prototype construction and testing
Design illustration

Team Members

Jesse Wu
Kaustav Das
Michael Gorczyca
Cece Phu

Project Summary

How It Works

Video Demo

Initial Sketches

Draft sketch of printer showing horizontal sliders with a central printing module

In our initial design, the selected marker is spun to the right position in the circular track and pushed down by an actuator.

Cardboard Prototype

Markers in the printing module are rotated around the cylinder by a spinning midsection

The tops of the markers are guided by a circular rail

One slice of the circular rail connects to the up-down actuator and detaches from the rest of the rail to push the marker down

Finished cardboard prototype with all components attached

Draft sketch of printer showing horizontal sliders with a central printing module

In our initial design, the selected marker is spun to the right position in the circular track and pushed down by an actuator.

Intermediate Functional Prototype

Things started to get exciting from here. After all the theorizing, planning, and cardboard prototyping, we started building the first iteration of our working prototype that uses a single marker.

Our intermediate functional prototype heavily uses laser-cut acrylic pieces

Motors control the x and y-axis movement sliders

The first iteration of the print module uses a single pen

Marker moves up and down using a gear and gear rack system, instead of an actuator in our earlier designs

Top-down view of full intermediate prototype

Final Prototype

One of the biggest takeaways I got from rapid prototyping was the importance of not being married to an idea. Being flexible and constantly adapting was key to success. After encountering difficulties getting our original pushing mechanism to work, we brainstormed and switched to a simple spring mechanism that pulled markers back up after they were pushed down by the gear-rack actuator.

Lots of laser cutting, 3D-printing, and Arduino wizardry later, the pixel art printer printed its first image.

I designed the final print module, a laser-cut carousel that would house the 16 colored markers

3D-printed gear-rack actuator that pushes markers down

Spring attachment restores marker back to its original position after being pushed down

16 Crayola markers numbered corresponding to their fixed position on the carousel, with each position being mapped to the Arduino

Our first successful pixel art print — a red bone

More advanced prints — Poké Ball and Pikachu

Print module assembled with all 16 markers

Science Center Exhibition

At the end of the semester, our project was showcased at the local science center in Ithaca. Our carousel printer printed one dot at a time and thus operated relatively slowly, but its clear operating mechanism and spinning bright colors had no problems attracting curious kids to our kiosk.