Scribit

At Carlo Ratti Associati, the Scribit project focused on translating an experimental, room-scale drawing installation into a reproducible consumer product. Operating at the intersection of product design, embedded systems, and robotics, I worked to miniaturize a vertical wall plotter into a self-contained device. The goal was to build a reliable machine that could autonomously draw, erase, and switch colors on standard walls, bringing digital content into physical spaces through a consumer-friendly interface.

I engineered the hardware architecture to house all motors, actuators, and computing within a single cast-aluminum casing. The mechanical design featured a custom revolver-like pen holder capable of automatically engaging four different colors and preventing ink from drying. To replace earlier mechanical erasers, I integrated a heating element that worked with specialized heat-erasable ink. On the software side, I contributed to a companion application that allowed users to schedule drawings, process digital images into vector paths, and preview the physical output before the robot began plotting.

Transitioning from a hackable prototype to a consumer product introduced strict constraints around weight, usability, and mechanical reliability. I iterated extensively on the enclosure to balance the thermal output of the motors and the erasing element. However, over-engineering the mechanical complexity—specifically the four-pen revolver and heat management—resulted in a heavy device that required robust wall anchors. Additionally, relying on a closed-source software architecture and cloud servers introduced latency and limited the system's long-term maintainability, highlighting the tradeoffs between premium hardware features and accessible user experiences.

The hardware and software prototypes successfully scaled into a manufactured product, raising $1.6 million on Kickstarter and $2.4 million on Indiegogo. The system was named among the Best Inventions by Time Magazine and was a winner of the Red Dot Design Award in product design. Although the device ultimately faced commercial challenges regarding its closed ecosystem, the project validated the technical feasibility of translating complex, multi-axis robotic plotting into a consumer-facing form factor.