A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

colporteur — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 03:45:55 GMT

The Etch a Sketch was first introduced during my youth. I recall it coming up the side of my head in a tussle with my brother. My parent felt a shared toy between two boys was a good idea. Not!

The wire run on the pots is so short, I'm curious if you get any noise cancellation benefits?

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

genebren — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 17:52:21 GMT

Interesting project! Back in the early 90's, while I was on a period of unemployment, I was very interested in attempting a project built around a Nintendo GameBoy. I found a game developer that had an unused development system for the GameBoy that I was able to borrow. I was interested in building a graphical interface that was not sprite based (the device did not have a true X/Y mapped interface to the LCD), so as an example of drawing line segments (hopefully waveforms) I attempted to build an Etch-a-Sketch. I was able to prove that it was possible to draw multiple spaces, including free form sketches to LCD. My son and his friends were so excited, being able to play around with a home-brewed GameBoy game (think Super Hero Dad!). Unfortunately the company needed their system back before I was able to interface to the necessary hardware to build my handheld scope, but I did have a lot of fun in the process.

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

dubbie — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 16:40:28 GMT

This is an interesting idea for a project. I'm not sure where it would end up but it could be fun, maybe with some form of OLED display and colour changing dot.

Dubbie

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

beacon_dave — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 13:58:08 GMT

You could perhaps use a couple of digital pots and a microcontroller to help you with the drawing side. Continuous line drawing 'Hilbert space-filling curves' could be quite fun with it.

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

14rhb — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 10:43:19 GMT

Hi Gough,

What a fun project; a heart is a very tricky shape for just X and Y input. I'm sure you can also print the output (which the original Etch-a-Sketch could not). It makes me now think of two things:

(1) You've a bit of practice needed to beat Elf (in the film Elf) !

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x335/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-4d2647df-04b6-4dad-b507-59cd47db0899/3201.contentimage_5F00_205839.jpg:620:335]

[External Source: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/105478/how-was-the-etch-a-sketch-art-of-mona-lisa-made-for-elf ]

(2) I saw this recently, which is an Etch-a-Sketch for a woodwork router.

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x352/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-4d2647df-04b6-4dad-b507-59cd47db0899/1157.contentimage_5F00_205840.jpg:620:352]

[External Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulblySFElo4 ]

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

Andrew J — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 09:53:28 GMT

You do have to like stuff like this! It’s fun to do these quirky things just because you can. Unlike an etch-a-sketch, I guess you don’t shake to erase: although you could attach an accelerometer to the power and as long as the device was stable it would be ok [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-4d2647df-04b6-4dad-b507-59cd47db0899/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

RE: A Modern Digital Etch-a-Sketch

clem57 — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 09:27:56 GMT

[mention:ef601b47037147bfb9b0b4a3ab63026a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] Great little project and tool. I was lucky as a kid and got one to play with. As a result I decided it was more fun to figure out how they work not actually using one. So how do you "erase" the work?

Clem