The Robot Typewriter that Creates ASCII Art

Become a JBV Creative Thangs Member and get access to 2+ premium files every month: thangs.com/designer/engineezy
The plan is to use 3d printers, Servo motors, an arduino, and some mediocre computer code to fully automate an antique typewriter from the 1950’s with the sole intention of creating ASCII art from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Why? Because the irony of the whole project just screams art, but then it also outputs art making it even more ironic, which makes it scream even more Art. Hard project to pass up.
From the engineering perspective, this is a mechatronics project, which means it requires mechanical, electronic, and software engineering. This video documents the project and is broken up into 4 distinct parts:
1:42 - Mechanical design process
10:15 - Electronics process
11:15 - Software Engineering process
15:25 - The Art Creation Process (if you’re only going to watch one part, watch this)
The mechanical design ended up using rack and pinions for the x-axis, y-axis, typing fingers, and return carriage. I chose to use servo motors as actuators for each segment in an attempt to make the electronics and software development easier. It definitely made organizing the wires much easier, but led to complications down the road. I used the Arduino ide to write the firmware for this robot, and Processing to write the software. It was cobbled together code, but fortunately, the machine ran quite well and I was able to produce some amazing ASCII art in the process!
If you would like to help support this channel and the creation of bigger, better engineering/art projects, check out my Patreon here:
Patreon.com/engineezy
If you would like to see my whole collection of work, check out my Instagram:
engineezy
As always, check out my website if you would like to purchase any of my downloadable files for 3D print: engineezy.com

[@nateolmsted22]

putting that Y slider at an angle is such an obvious but genius move 😅 I was trying to think of a good way to accomplish dealing with that height difference in the rows of keys before you got to it and basically facepalmed when you showed the angled rack setup lol super cool project, as usual 👌👌

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Nate! I was pretty pumped when I realized that would work 🙌

[@nevyn38]

Part of me finds it REALLY funny that you managed to reinvent the daisy wheel printer. Another part of me is totally impressed that you came up with what's essentially a conversion kit for turning a typewriter into a printer. I'm not sure which part of me is winning out.

[@Engineezy]

🙏🙏

[@justtestingonce]

Only 2000 views, you got to be kidding me! Dude as an engineer myself, excellent work and excellent way to tell your story, love the work, subscribed.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks so much dude! Welcome to the adventure 👊👊

[@D4RKFiB3R]

What a difference a year makes :)

[@jamescrowe2958]

you’re literally the coolest person i know. i’m currently in university for engineering and can only dream of doing projects like this when i’m older

[@Engineezy]

Thanks James! I started in the same place as you- you got this 👊👊

[@BrownMInc]

I know right! I'm in my 3rd year and his videos makes thinking of the possibilities so exciting. I appreciate that he shows and explains a bit of the process more than just "I got this thing and did that thing and boom here it is". My creativity could use some work though!

[@ivangutowski]

If you're uni age, doing engineering - surely your entire free time growing up must have been filled with projects like these - that's how you learn.

[@KaffeMedBulla]

I already do projects like this and I'm 12 years old

[@jayasuriya8306]

Me too

[@jtcustomknives]

What I find genius which some people might not have noticed is the hot glue pockets you modeled into your parts. When using any type of glue a “starved joint” is a very real thing where the glue gets squished out between the 2 materials causing a weakness in the joint. You accounted for this but adding a glue pocket. Very nice.

[@Engineezy]

Mad respect for catching that! 👊👊

[@shedactivist]

Brilliant. My first reaction to the finger torque issue was to use an electric typewriter. They have push button carriage returns as well

[@BaronSamedi1959]

You are too young to have seen it, but down in the late 1970s / early 1980s before printers became available for home use, you could buy a "keyboard" consisting of solenoids which you mounted above your electro-mechanical typewriter and your computer would then drive the solenoids. It made a hell of a noise, but it worked remarkably well. Later, the dot-matrix printers became more widely available, but their print quality was definitely way less than the solenoid-driven electro-mechanical typewriter. Someone actually recreated this kind of contraption: www.geeky-gadgets.com/retro-typewriter-printer-created-using-arduino-and-solenoids-30-06-2015/

[@Engineezy]

This is awesome! Definitely a little before my time 😂

[@CC-jy3el]

That is so cool! Thanks for sharing!!

[@BuckeyeStormsProductions]

You should now pair this with AI story creation software. Then make it portable, take it to a coffee shop, and when people look at you funny, tell them you are working on your next novel.

[@Engineezy]

😂😂 that would be hilar

[@bobert286]

Lol, this would make an awesome art exhibit...dress the mechanism up with a sparking and stressed out looking robot to look like it's typing - then just have it typing away random gibberish generated by an AI bot that was trained by watching months of trash TV Call it "A device by any other MAC address would have as low of latency" by William Sparkspeare

[@gamer_si]

GPT sucks at ASCII art

[@SomeGuyOnTheInterweb]

Wait... buckeye storms? I am an Ohioan who enjoys weather too!

[@BuckeyeStormsProductions]

@@SomeGuyOnTheInterweb cool! I once had the dream of using my channel to provide great Buckeye State weather content. That came and went a long time ago. Haha. Still in Ohio. Still enjoy weather.

[@DJTsquaredMusic]

This is absolutely incredible and needs to blow up 🙌

[@Engineezy]

Thanks brother! Hopefully it does :)

[@KieranShort]

I just came across this video (and channel)... It hasn't yet, but definitely should! I got here on a convoluted journey via a 3D Printer Academy website link to a Kickstarter of models which was run by JBV while had a KZbin link.. which brought me here.

[@Engineezy]

@@KieranShort Welcome! Happy to have ya :)

[@rvisani]

Amazing work!!! I've been following your channel on and off and you are getting more and more ambitious. Really exciting to see you push your creativity!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Roberto! I plan to keep pushing :)

[@3DPrinterAcademy]

This is such a cool project!! Hope this vid blows up! (And your programming skills are great FYI)

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Steven! We will see what happens 🙈

[@machinebeat130]

Watched your channel for a few hours in one go. Love what you do. 😊

[@Maderasdesign]

Ahh ascii nudes. brings back memories to late 90s and early 00's. This was incredible by the way!

[@Engineezy]

😂😂 thank you!

[@kamel3d]

Very cool project I which at the end of the video you made normal speed segment of the machine taping a word or more, then a timelapse without moving the camera to see it motion for longer time, just for people to apreciate the creation, well done

[@heyitsAnton]

This is great! You make it look ALMOST easy with your skills!!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Anton! Much appreciated

[@zotezotezote]

This is by far one of the most impressive things I've seen! Subscribed.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks!! Much appreciated

[@elspanishimo]

Absolutely amazing build!!! And the end results are so cool! Love the explanation and walk through too, super interesting.

[@DJTsquaredMusic]

+ Graham Shoutout!!!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Graham (everyone, this is THE Graham) for saving me some headaches 👊👊

[@esser50k]

This vi turned out really nice, one of my inspirations for my latest typewriter build :D

[@codylund2169]

I just found you a month ago. And I must say you're awesome. I'm loving all your stuff. Keep clapping.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks so much!

[@t-mane5729]

This is my kind of channel. Great content. Bet your about to blow up so keep creating!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Always appreciate comments like these 🙏

[@ekaggrat]

really cool work. I really like the way the servos are used for linear motion rather than the usual heavier steppers

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!!

[@yetanotherdan]

I love this! I'd like to see you tackle a string art machine. There's a few examples on KZbin but they're basically a hoop with a lot of pins around the edge and a mechanism that feeds thread through them. The designs that can be made are very artistic and cool.

[@Engineezy]

Im gonna check it out! Thanks for watching Dan!

[@tbianchi02]

This project is freaking awesome! Very happy to discover your yt channel, youre amazing!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Tomas! Appreciate it 😀

[@Thawney]

This is the first video of yours I have ever seen and I love your channel already.

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!!

[@another_user05]

printers should've started like this... that would be great to see in history before the actual printer.

[@VinVout]

I loved your working area so much. I wish I could get one like yours.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Vin! Definitely a great place to be creative 🙌

[@OliverGardens]

High quality content, I'm surprised the YT algo didn't push this to me sooner.

[@Engineezy]

Took over a year 🤷‍♀️

[@vsgames1022]

Im impressed, well done!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!!

[@mohammedsuwaidi]

Hey JBV, I love your videos! The output of this project is beautiful, I do a lot of 3D modeling and printing in my projects minus the servo and arduino additions (wish I could learn it). I really appreciate the commitment you’ve had holding on to your vision. Congratulations. Big fan of your channel - keep it up ✨

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Appreciate the kind words. Best of luck on your printing journey :)

[@sundaynobody]

very nice, inspiring me to get into servo motor control!

[@Engineezy]

So many possibilities

[@mysteriouspikachuman]

Your videos are a huge inspiration. All of your projects make me want to get on Fusion, or VSC, or whatever stuff is cool and do something!

[@Engineezy]

Doo it!!

[@mysteriouspikachuman]

@@Engineezy yeah i just got klipper working on my rpi4, excited for more printermods!

[@MoltenImaginings]

Binge watching these cool builds. You had way too much fun with this one at the end. Lol

[@Engineezy]

😂

[@kylebrake1806]

I love your videos! Keep up the great work.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Kyle!

[@temidirehamzaht8169]

I love the way he explains what he’s doing , it makes me really want to make something

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Go make something 😀

[@thetruthexperiment]

I can’t believe how clean those gears look. I really need to get into 3D printing before it’s too late.

[@MG-design]

3D printing is amazing! Absolutely fell in love with it. The principal of fast Prototyping really puts building something in a new perspective. I once heard "creativity is intelligentice having fun". This really is true with 3D printing

[@Freestila]

What i love about these projects: As a software developer i see just from a quick glance room for some improvements on the software :) Easy peasy for me. On the other side i would really struggle with the 3d design. So i like these projects which bridge different topics :)

[@Engineezy]

Glad you can enjoy it even though my programming is a little hack!

[@xXIkaron]

@@Engineezy Seeing you make a variable for every individual key made me so sad but hey, it did work! Congrats on the build, looks awesome.

[@Seanlabor]

@@xXIkaron How would you solve it instead?

[@xXIkaron]

@@Seanlabor std::map with KeyPosition being a struct containing the necessary info e.g. x, y, which side, etc.

[@mihailmilev9909]

Thank you for being the first to expose me to and let me know about the career path for me that I've been looking for in this video (mechatronics engineer). Also EXACTLY 400th comment! This can't be a coincidence 😉😜 ;P

[@Engineezy]

🙌🙌🙌

[@LossBH]

man i love this channel. love your work! thanks for the top tier content

[@Engineezy]

Much appreciated!

[@LossBH]

@@Engineezy i know you’re a busy guy, but i i figured i’d ask anyway. i struggle with putting my ideas and ambitions into motion, sometimes. what do you use/do to organize your thoughts or goals? i struggle to focus on one project for extended periods of time and end up jumping from project to project, leaving stuff unfinished. trying to improve!

[@notsecure]

WOW, Simply Amazing!!!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you 🙏

[@DanteYewToob]

You know, it never occurred to me until now that the boomer style of peck typing might have a reason… it actually makes sense on a typewriter where the keys have long heavy strokes and you have to punch the keys down with force… the “proper” and efficient way of modern typing wouldn’t work on a typewriter without a lot of effort and skill… so most people probably just pecked at the keys to make sure they got a clean result! Not to mention if you make a mistake you can’t just easily delete… so accuracy was more important than speed for most people. It just goes to show that as much as we might judge others, they might have an explanation or reason behind it. My mom types like that but she grew up using a typewriter which she actually still has in decent condition in our storage.. maybe I’ll check it out and see how it feels.

[@Leftysrev3nge]

For real. I wonder what the WPM were for some early typists on these early typewriters. Some Hulked-out fingers.

[@vidademau]

Woooow está increible. Te felicito!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!

[@MorleyKert]

This is so awesome.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks brother 👊👊

[@john7027]

Jay, there is NOTHING mediocre about you. You are brilliant 🤩

[@Engineezy]

Thanks John!

[@TantoVale]

Nice project and cool execution! I guess it took a lot of trial and error and waiting for prints to come out, test them and change the design😁😁

[@Engineezy]

Exactly! But I try to design in such a way that I can iterate quickly. Thanks for watching :)

[@MaheshDilipSalvi]

Great work! Same thing was in my mind three years ago but only for trying not for image printing and my preference was fixing solenoid actuator on each key. My idea was to create fusion of soft keyboard and hard print i.e. As we go on hitting/typing keys on computer keyboard it will relocate same remotely on typewriter ;)

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Great minds think alike!

[@ibrahimkocaalioglu]

Amazing project ❤

[@Engineezy]

🙏🙏🙏

[@jesvinpalatty9112]

This project was really awesome !! . you earned yourself a subscriber : )

[@Engineezy]

Welcome aboard! Thanks for watching!

[@felixtrefzer3893]

Nice video I like so many nice 3D printable designs

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Felix!

[@iamjamieq]

Hey Jay! Haven't seen you in ages, but my dad told me about your creations. This stuff is awesome! Not only the finished products, but I love these videos of your process!! I just bought your wall mounted marble coaster to print for my son. Keep this up! I've subscribed and will keep watching. Also, "baby Boomer-esque typing style" is one of the funniest phrases I've heard in a long time!

[@Engineezy]

James! Saw that but wasn’t sure if it was you- thanks so much for supporting. Haha we all have at least one peck-typer in the family and their name is often Michael 🤣

[@TechsScience]

Nice work It deserves millions views

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!

[@anthonymuccillo]

Fricken heck man this is an excellent build 🤙 I'm sure it's been said before, but for future servo projects it's very easy to modify them for endless rotation for linear and winching applications. Few resistors or even using a linear potentiometer in place of the potentiometer and removing the stop pin in the output spline. Always looking forward to more mechatronics builds.

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Continuous servo mods will definitely be used in the future!

[@iliarsl]

This is amazing!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! 👊👊

[@theepictallguy]

Underrated Video!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you sir!

[@vishwasshukla9288]

Proud of you!

[@Engineezy]

Well thank you 😊

[@mrtroy]

Had to pause the video at 04:00 ... I sat and stared off into space cause in my 30+ years of using computers NEVER heard that(or remember hearing it). And it makes so much sense.

[@Engineezy]

Haha I know right 🤯

[@gordonwong2260]

Very cool project

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Gordon! Glad you enjoyed

[@Rouverius]

Really cool. Added bonus, it types faster than me 😅

[@Engineezy]

😂😂😂 thanks!

[@ruben-b4534]

All the coders: PAIN, also the coders: Nice!

[@nidhishsingh4122]

Dude you are so underrated, wtf get this man to a million quick

[@Engineezy]

🙏🙏🙏

[@nyaa]

this is awesome! :)

[@Engineezy]

Thank you 😊

[@ZMacGregor]

16:00 AYO WHAT Just to be clear I'm definitely not complaining but I was not expecting that

[@Engineezy]

😎

[@kenangrover402]

Very cool!

[@aminnuzulludin2256]

Great bro

[@Engineezy]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@r.e.l.crafts]

you are awesome man wish for your passion

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!!

[@vinhdau6908]

Cant wait for this channel to blow up

[@Engineezy]

With you on that!

[@TFlorian]

nice project !

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Florian!

[@data-_-]

The horror fan in me was praying for you to make it type out "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"

[@rwolterbeek]

This vid deserves more love, have some engagement

[@Engineezy]

Much appreciated 🙏

[@SURESH0511]

Very nice project. I would like to make one. Are you going to share the CAD files and firmware ?

[@sujalsharma7895]

someone: how many a4 sheets have you used for this? jay: yes

[@Engineezy]

🤣

[@Soporonix]

this is high quality content

[@Engineezy]

Appreciate it!

[@Tictacpanter]

Would be neat to see it pump out an animated scene.

[@Engineezy]

That would be awesome! Maybe one day I’ll bring it back to life

[@avsjrportfolio]

AMAZING

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!

[@braydenreince6340]

Easy subscribe, awesome project!!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!!

[@herzogsbuick]

fantastic! there's an output filter for mplayer that renders video in ascii, you might be able to type up a short video, grabbing each frame, then animating them together. just an idea :-) subscribed!

[@Engineezy]

Ooh that would be amazing!

[@rplutchik]

So clever!!

[@theturtle32]

This is awesome! Love the ridiculous engineering choices (hot glue 😅) for the lulz, and even the stubborn commitment to using servo motors even if something else would work better. That being said, another approach to building this kind of machine would be to just use an unmodified 3d printer control board and stepper motors with endstops. You just tell the firmware (probably Marlin) how many steps translate to the movement of one millimeter on each axis, and then you could write a simple program to translate a text document into GCode movement commands to move the X and Y axes. The Z axis could be used for operating the "return" lever. And either continue using a servo for the button-press (Marlin firmware can control servos as well) or better yet, a solenoid connected via an H-Bridge to one of the spare GPIO pins on the control board (There are GCode commands that can tell Marlin to set a GPIO pin to high or low). With that in place, you could hook it up with OctoPrint and then you're literally using an entire 3d printing stack to implement a traditional text-on-paper printer! 😅

[@Engineezy]

Very true! Maybe next time 😂

[@MW-mechanical]

How the hell does this have less than 1000 likes!? You’re fantastic, man!

[@Engineezy]

Thank you!

[@peter360adventures9]

Awesome.

[@Engineezy]

🙏🙏

[@aliciawelch3127]

amazing.

[@Engineezy]

🙏🙏

[@leoneventicinque6731]

This machine should be placed in "This Museum is (not) Obsolete"

[@Xanore]

Nice!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks!

[@alanesq1]

You asked for ideas for future projects: You could adapt this to operate a comptometer, this could be an interesting project as there would be all the fun of coding the mathematical procedures used with a comptometer and also whilst it is possible to do this one key at a time on a comptometer they are designed to press several keys at the same time, you could have one arm with several moving fingers. It would also have the advantage of being able to claim the title of the slowest electronic calculator on the planet ;-) BTW - professional comptometer operators only used keys 1 to 5.

[@Engineezy]

😂😂 slowest calculator

[@sandralevy6268]

Awesome 😎👍😎!!

[@Engineezy]

Thanks Sandra :)

[@ejenda9909]

An object with the keys mapped to numbers could have saved you a lot of time!

[@Engineezy]

Still working on my OOP skills! Thanks will def need to try this

[@VileAce]

Just found your channel and have been going through some of the past videos. In the future when you want to get rid of play in your gears you might want to try a herringbone gear pattern. I use them a lot when I want lager gears for an easy 3d print but do not want the play.

[@Engineezy]

Thanks for the tip! Will definitely need to try it

[@philsbbs]

love it

[@FoxyAnimater]

Another fun fact about return, macos may never mention it explicitly as return but Linux does. Especially in older software.

[@Engineezy]

Interesting!

[@TAPSSebas]

the fingers are like something straight out of an animation movie

[@Engineezy]

Haha yesss! Thats what I was going for

[@barracudalake1607]

is it possible to combine characters to get more possibilities with it? essentially backspace without the space/removing of the character

[@Myrddraalfade]

Beautiful way to turn a typewriter into half of a a Teleprinter/teletype.

[@gbishel]

so you made a regular printer. Pretty cool!

[@Engineezy]

With pointy fingers**

[@kidsa4305]

I think this is great

[@Engineezy]

Glad you can appreciate it!!

[@hughjanis6318]

4:40 Ayy, that’s the same brand of servo I use for my rc car! 😃

[@Engineezy]

🙌🙌🙌

[@thetruthexperiment]

Also, 3D printing has been a concept for as long as history and the idea got very popular in the 80s. Articles in all the science rags were taking of them as a futuristic future thing. To build buildings and tools and prototypes. But it wasn’t until some people bit the bullet and just built one that they became popular. Nobody saw their obvious utility. Nobody saw dollar signs. It wasn’t our engineering capabilities or even or computer power that held us back, it was people willing to just do it finally that made the difference. Makes you wonder how many other amazing things we lack because people expect someone else to come up with it.

[@shadowcowmooo7415]

saw one of ur shorts and had to check out the channel, was not disappointed, seems like the channel stuffmadehere

[@Engineezy]

Thanks for checking it out my guy! Stuffmadehere is definitely an inspiration

[@cyd9183]

I recall that old PCs used to do something similar by connecting an electric typewriter to the output device.

[@johnh9661]

Was NOT expecting the pretty lady picture, but I’m not mad about that 😂

[@Engineezy]

🤣

[@computeraidedworld1148]

I would have really liked to hear it run

[@Engineezy]

Opportunity missed 😢

[@Custom3dPrinting4U]

Nice

[@Engineezy]

👊👊