Line-us is an app-driven, connected robotic pantograph

There seems to be an almost counter-culture among creatives today. Despite the prevalence of digital photos, pocket printers seem to be on the rise. Despite the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets, physical notebooks remain en vogue. There's still something to be said about physical manifestations of our creations. But, if we were given the choice, we'd probably prefer to have both digital and physical. That is probably the idea behind Line-us, which is basically a modern-day pantograph that, in real time, draws on paper what you're drawing on a tablet.

A pantograph is a very, very old contraption that, in essence, lets you copy, enlarge, or even shrink, what you're drawing on one paper onto another paper. The Line-us is pretty much like that, except you yourself aren't drawing anything on paper. Actually, you can't draw on anything except on a tablet and only using the Line-us app.

You might wonder what the point of such a device is. It's definitely not going to be for reproducing fine art work, as the little robot isn't capable of that. Then again, that depends on what you consider to be art work. Line-us is a great way to create a faithful reproduction of a drawing as it happens, which can later be frame for posterity or used for other purposes. Plus, the machine is actually programmable, so those with some coding skills can connect make extend its functionality, like maybe dabble in a bit of water color.

Line-us is both an entertainment gadget as well as a learning machine. It has, however, its limitations. For one, the robot and your tablet communicate only over WiFi, so the congestion of your local network might affect the speed of that communication. Line-us is also still on a Kickstarter stage, though it has breezed through its 39,000 GBP goal, with plenty of time to spare. If all goes well, the Line-us will ship to backers in October this year.

VIA: Kickstarter