For our capstone project we are working with stepper motors to create a 3-Axis print head. There are a lot of things that can be done with such a setup, and in fact even with 2-Axis movement. Below is a Robotic Tattoo Machine named ‘Freddy’ created in 2002 by Niki Passath.

The tattoo designs are generative, and it is apparently hard to do user testing…

“It was a hard job because the only person I could test it on was myself which was painful but a good incentive to get it right as soon as possible.

“He’s an artist of course so he always decides what design the person is going to get, they can’t choose. But I haven’t had any complaints yet.”

There is something interesting about the permanency of the tattoo form. So many computer generated graphics are disposable. When randomization is involved we cycle through them in search of the ‘perfect’ iteration, but this project commits one design in an irreversible way.