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#Week 11 - Machine Design - Marbled Paper Machine
Click to see a [1 min video](../week11-machines/images-marbled-paper/machine.mp4) of the process of making marbled paper with our machine
Marbling paper is a way of making designs with ink on the surface of a water solution and then transferring them to paper. It is an ancient technique, with references from 800 bc in China. It is used today to create images for use in bookbinding.
We built a machine that manipulates ink to make designs on the surface of water
We modified a machine that was partly assembled in our lab. It has an aluminum frame, 2 stepper motors for the x axis, one stepper motor for the Y axis, and a servo to make a simple up and down movement in the Z axis.
We designed combs parametrically in Grasshopper (thanks for the help Eduardo!) so we could easily make different combs with different width and spaced teeth. We designed and cut legs for the machine on the laser cutter.
The electronics are run by an arduino uno with a shield. We create a drawing in Inkscape that is a path for the movement we want, then use a plug-in (gcodetools) that creates a generalized gcode for the path. GRBL then changes the gcode into commands that move our machine. GRBL firmware is loaded into the arduino, the arduino takes GCODE from the PC and converts it into movements of the stepper motors via GRBL.
Click to see a [1 min video](../week11-machines/images-marbled-paper/Marbeled Paper small.mp4) of the process of making marbled paper with our machine
##Issues
##Future Work
Ximena is from Mexico City where earthquakes are common. She would like to continue with the project and and simulate the effects of different intensity earthquakes in the designs that the machine makes, perhaps by shaking the water pan at exponential intensities reflecting the Richter scale. One set of legs we made for the machine accomodate shaking the machine.
[More about Adai here](https://fabacademy.org/2022/labs/barcelona/students/adai-surinac/about/)
[More About Ximena here](https://fabacademy.org/2022/labs/barcelona/students/ximena-amador/about/)
[More about Lonnie here](https://fabacademy.org/2022/labs/barcelona/students/lonnie-gamble/about/)
click [here](../week11-machines/images-marbled-paper/output_0001-Spirals Gcode.txt) to see gcode samples from the Inkscape plug in gcodetools