COURSES / DRAWING MACHINES / LECTURES / DAY 04 ← PREV 06 / 07 NEXT →
DAY 04 TBD · WITH COHORT 06 TOPICS

Exhibition.

Refine your project, hang the work, and walk each other through it.

01

Refinement.

The first half of Day 4 is studio time. Re-run the version that came out best, try a different material, write a sentence about the work. Bring one thing to a state you can stand behind.

02

Installation & sharing.

We hang what we have on the wall together. No theme, no curation — the wall reads as a worklog. Then everyone walks the group through their piece: what they tried, what surprised them, what they'd do differently.

Upload your final files and a photo of the physical output to the group folder.

03

Document your work.

Before you leave, upload documentation of your experiments to the shared documentation folder. This becomes the permanent record of the cohort's work.

File naming: [descriptor]_[YourName]
Example: spiral-field_JaneDoe.svg
To stay anonymous, just leave off your name.

What to include: Final photos of your physical output, source files (SVG, code, parameters), and a short author's note — what you tried, what surprised you, what you'd do differently.

Open documentation folder →

04

Share your experience.

Your feedback directly shapes whether workshops like this continue. Organizers use your responses to demonstrate impact and apply for future funding — a few minutes of your time can help bring this experience to more people.

We're asking for a short testimonial, what was most valuable to you, and any concerns you have about continuing this work independently.

Take the survey →

05

Stay connected.

06

Keep making.

You don't need the workshop's machines to keep drawing. The software is free, the techniques transfer, and there are options at every price point.

AxiDraw V3/SE$1,000 – $10,000
Bantam Tools. The standard — reliable, well-documented, large community.
AxiDraw-style plotters on Amazon$100 – $250
More affordable, but unvetted — we haven't tested these.
DIY (GRBL + steppers + rails)$50 – $500 in parts
Full control, but you're building the machine yourself. Arduino + CNC shield.
3D printer + pen holder$10 – $30 for the adapter
If you already own an Ender 3, Prusa, etc., a pen holder converts it into a drawing machine.

All the software tools are open source: Inkscape, vpype, saxi. The SVG guide and ASCII art tool on this site work in any browser. And LLMs have opened entirely new workflows — you can collaborate with AI to generate SVGs and G-code for compatible machines, no programming experience required.