About Us

Ben, Bruce, and Brian at the Maker Faire 2009

Bruce Shapiro, my dad, created the original "eggbot" in Spring of 1990 when he first became fascinated with controlling stepper motors from his computer.The original design was motivated by simplicity:drawing on a round object does not require any complicated mechanics.  And since Easter was coming up, the obvious canvas was eggs.

Since then Bruce has created many art pieces and shop machines, including permanent installations in the U.S. and Europe (www.taomc.com). He even created a hi-res version of the eggbot, dubbed the Ovagraph.  For my dad, conmputer-controlled motion is a new frontier for art, but it is also a great teaching tool.  He has taught classes at the Science Museum of Minnesota, San Francisco Exploratorium, and elsewhere using the eggbot to teach about electronics, programming, and robotics.  These classes take a lot of work to prepare, but the feedback is always amazing.

The original eggbot (1990)

This year, I teamed up with my dad and Brian Schmalz to turn the eggbot into a kit for home-assembly.  Brian, an embedded-systems engineer, created the EggBotBoard which connects the eggbot to the computer over usb.  He has created many open-source boards for connecting your PC to the outside world (www.schmalzhaus.com), which can be purchased from SparkFun.  I am a recent Stanford computer science graduate, and created the open-source software that allows you to create drawings in Inkscape and plot them to the eggbot.

Our goal is to teach about the electronics, mechanics, and software needed to build your own motion control projects. We hope this project inspires you to explore the emerging field of home robotics as a medium for teachers, artists, and makers.