Only two weeks after we came home from the Maker Fair, a new project was waiting for us. We were invited back to Hannover to the art festival called Hola Utopia. But not as guests, as artists! And our main kicker would be the Dot-Bot, of course. This year the entire festival was centered around one school in Hannover. In every corner and on every side different artists from all over the world have gotten walls that they were supposed to reimagine with a nice artwork.
We were given a wall on the opposite side from where most people were working, but a very exposed one. Hundreds of students would pass this wall every morning on their way to their classrooms. Also, across our wall there is a long practice wall where children and students are leveling up their graffiti game all day long.
We planned to do this entire wall in one week without knowing what the challenges would be, what would work and what would give us a headache. In this blog post I’m going to describe a bit day by day what we did, what we worked on and what challenges occurred.
Tuesday
For me the day started with packing and getting everything in the car. As it happens ever so often, another project held me back and I started my journey towards Hannover later than I had hoped for.
When I got there at around 4pm, Jascha and some helpers were already waiting for me. We started planning our wooden frame and laid out the robot and the boards to see if everything gets together the way we planned it.
We then started screwing all the boards together to make one long truss and brainstormed a bit for the week ahead and then called it a day.
Wednesday
The day started early and we met at the wall where we started discussing the best course of action. Since we already planned on moving the bot vertically multiple times, we thought about ways to streamline this process and discussed the dangers involved. We came up with the idea that we should probably use ropes and wall anchors to secure the robot while we move it with the lift. So, we headed to the hardware store, got the ropes and anchors, and installed them to the very top of the wall. After the ropes were connected to the robot, we hoisted everything up to a height of only two and a half meters above the ground where we could still easily reach all of the components.
We then calibrated the robot one last time to ensure that we got all the dimensions right. After a very first test plot of a square, we decided that we could go ahead and lifted the entire construction up to the top. When the robot was in place we secured the wooden beam with screws to the wall and started the robot up. Several people who walked by stopped and started to watch. Also one festival crew member came with a drone and started to film the very first lines that we were going to make. To my personal surprise, everything worked out perfectly. The robot was perfectly calibrated and the strokes were crisp and exactly where we wanted them to be. I painted two test graphics and we decided that we could go ahead with the mural.
We inserted a stencil into the robot and went ahead with the very first strokes of our mural. At the end of the day the outlines for the first section of the wall were all done, and we headed back to the hotel.
Thursday
On the third day we started with painting some infill and went for the first round of overlaying outlines. During the time when Jascha was painting, I went to the hardware store one more time to get some flexible exhaust pipes because the exhaust of the crane was giving us a headache.
Apart from that, the day went smoothly, and after recalibration of the robot, we were able to paint outlines on top of the filled surfaces that Jascha had just finished.
We then proceeded to move the bot further down and painted more outlines.
Friday
On Friday we did not get lucky. First, the day started off normally and we filled some spaces in, and drew more outlines… But during that short period where everything seemed to work out, one of the teachers from the school decided to unplug our power cord and the entire Dot-Bot came to a screeching halt. We were puzzled and thought that we might have blown a fuse, but when we walked back the path of our power line, it became clear that it got simply unplugged. Plugging it back in was an easy fix, but our calibration was gone and we had to spend valuable time finding a good compromise for the lines to attach nicely to the previously drawn lines.
And then, we had to endure a lot of rain and had to hope that the Dot-Bot would not short out. During one of the rain breaks, we moved the bot further down one more time as preparation for the final day.
Saturday
We still had a lot of work ahead of us and not a lot of time, since I had to return the car later that day in Berlin, which is a 4-hour drive away from Hannover. But as it turned out, Saturday would become our most productive day so far. When we got there we fired up the robot and it went through an entire segment without a hitch. As usual, we filled the shapes in and then painted more outlines on top.
A lot of people were roaming around since they heard the news about the festival and wanted to see what was going on. Also one local newspaper wrote a short article about a spray robot doing one of the walls.
We were super satisfied with our progress. And also during that day I handed over the robot to Jascha. He will now start to experiment with it. During the entire day of painting, the control software was running on Jascha’s computer and he did all the handling.
When all the outlines were done, I packed my car and started my journey back to Berlin. Jascha stayed behind for some more cleaning up and then also called it a day.
Sunday
While I was already back in Berlin and sorting all the tools and pieces back to their places, Jascha was still at the wall and started to disassemble the robot. Later he applied a lot of final touch-ups to the mural. This was definitely an important step since it brought a lot of shine to the now finished piece of art.
The reactions we got were really positive. We got invited to two more art festivals, and a local newspaper (HAZ – Hannoversche Allgemeine) published a larger article with a video about our robot. But most importantly, we were really satisfied and happy with how everything turned out in the end.
If you also have an idea for a mural or need a custom robot to be built, please do not hesitate to contact me by using this email address.
