Jay of JBV Creative wanted to create some ASCII art using an antique Remington typewriter from the 1950s. But he didn't want to type it all out manually, so he created a 3D printed robot typewriter that can do it for him.
In the video clip below, Jay documented the various design processes (mechanical, electronics, and software engineering) of the build:
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!