THE ROBOTIC ARTIST: A

THE ROBOTIC ARTIST:

A SLEEP-DEPRIVED MORNING IN THE LAB

Sam Breese

The young man pulled his badge from the retractable lanyard and swiped it in front of the electronic door lock. The little LED on the front changed from red to green, and the black box let out a small buzz. The young man let go of the badge and it zipped back to its home on his hip. Stepping through the door and taking a sip of bitter, black coffee from his metal Contigo thermos, he scanned the shadow-cast lab. Light poured in from the tall windows of the second-floor hallway above. Sometimes, when tour groups would pass by and peer in through those windows, he felt like a goldfish swimming around in a little glass jar, there only for people’s amusement. He let out a yawn, took another big swig of coffee from his thermos, and flicked on the light switch beside him. The fluorescent lights flickered momentarily, then suddenly burst to life, dispelling the darkness draped about the room. The floor was a dull gray color with a shiny gloss coating that brightly reflected the overhead lights. Scattered throughout the room were large, sturdy workbenches with thick wooden tops, each of which had an aggressively fluorescent green vice bolted to the corner and heavy metal drawers that opened to reveal wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, tape measures, calipers, pliers, and any other tool a young aspiring engineer could dream of. Walking to his bench, he hefted the back-breaking textbooks inside his backpack onto the wooden top with a dull thud. As usual, he was the first person in the lab and had been the last one to leave the night before. Pulling his laptop from his bag, he let out another yawn, took another sip of coffee, and wiped the sleep from his baggy eyes. He lazily drifted his head from side to side, examining all the half-finished projects in the room, as his old brick of a computer took its time starting up. Between each workbench were large aluminum tables. The tables were an aesthetically pleasing shade of burnished silver and the tabletops were enclosed with rigid, transparent, plastic panels. Trapped inside the see-through cages were small electric conveyors, laser sensors with long black wires, and red pneumatic tubing hooked up to air cylinders. Each tabletop cell had something unique. In one, there was a large round table designed to rotate, indexing parts to precise positions. Another had a hand-built metal tower with deburring tools strapped to the top. One was filled with Starburst candy and a vacuum sealer that packaged them into small plastic baggies. Each cell had one thing in common though, the centerpiece of it all – the robot. All the other equip-

ment in the cell circled around the robot arm, like servants bowing to their king. Even two years later, the young man was still in awe of the machine. The LR Mate 200iD painted in classic FANUC yellow was the most magnificent piece of human ingenuity he had ever seen. He still remembers his first day with one. He felt amazed that such a powerful piece of equipment was so easily tamed. He remembered feeling slightly creeped out, but intrigued, by the robot’s movements. He had believed that a robot would be clunky and move awkwardly, in a manner so eloquently demonstrated by the famous dance move. However, this did not look anything like his inebriated father cutting a rug at his cousin’s wedding. Instead, the robot was fast and fluid in its movements, but also slow and calculated when it reached to pick its prey. It reminded the young man of a heron craning its long neck around above the water before suddenly piercing deep into the depths to snag its prey. He was snapped from his flashback by his goatee-faced, thick glasses wearing professor, Peter, entering the room and giving him an enthusiastic good morning in his thick German accent while removing his coat. Peter approached the young man and, feigning a sincere tone, sarcastically asked him if he had spent the night there. “These benches don’t have much lumbar support,” the young man said in a snarky tone. Peter let out a deep, hearty laugh and smacked his hand on the bench. “Good man,” he said and walked away still giggling to himself. The clock dragged forward as his classmates gradually shuffled in around him. The young man leaned on his bench staring towards his laptop screen, but not really looking at it, as his mind stepped through his process for the ten-thousandth time that week. Sometimes, his ideas flowed perfectly into each other, like a coordinated team of athletes passing the baton in a relay race. Other days, his ideas ricocheted around his head uncontrollably, like his brain was a kid hopped up on sugar ramming into people on the bumper cars at the carnival. If today was a day at the carnival, he was the strung-out mother desperately scavenging the bottom of her purse for a stray Advil to relieve her pounding migraine. Before his schooling, he could never have believed so much preparation could go into creating a robot program. He first had to spend a Friday afternoon driving to the massive automotive factory in Pewaukee, before he could even think about writing a single line of code. Someone’s entire job was to stand in one spot and assemble four plastic pieces into a tiny valve. He watched the worker diligently, recording every detail of the seven-second process in his little red Mead notebook, like a reporter who had just discovered the story of a lifetime. He turned those notes into task lists, flowcharts, and layouts, which he then spread out across his whiteboard; that really made him feel like a professional. He pulled himself from his thousand-yard stare daydreaming and looked

around the room to see if his classmates’ brains were operating at a higher efficiency than his that day. Phil and Travis were arguing again about what type of gripper they should use for their gas cap assembly. Brandon had a huge grin on his face as he made a pun to David about their rotary table being a real pain in the “ro-butt.” David said nothing in response to the atrocious pun, but made a face that was a mixture of disgust and disappointment. The young man turned from his workbench and cranked the large red power lever on his cell into the “ON” position with a deep clunk. Various asynchronous beeps chirped from inside the power cabinet as each electrical device slowly woke from its slumber. He picked up the handheld teach pendant used to control the robot. The screen flashed white, then went dark, then came back to life; this time scrolling long lines of black text across a white background at a rate that was far too fast for any human to read. The screen faded black once more, showing the reflection of a physically exhausted, mental battered, and emotionally drained young man, before finally loading the home screen. He opened his program and jogged the robot through its positions; finding the spot where he was forced to resign at the night before when his rebellious body refused to continue operating on chicken-flavored Maruchan ramen, half a pot of cold coffee, and the sheer willpower of a desperate college student feeling the deadline of his senior project crashing down on him. The robot moved slowly and cautiously as it picked up a small plastic ring, then with its prize held, rapidly accelerated to its next position. A smile slowly stretched across the young man’s face as he watched his robot swing across the cell with extreme precision. Suddenly, the dam had broken, ideas began overflowing from his mind like a waterfall into a shot glass. He knew most people probably found the idea odd, but this robot was his outlet of creativity; he felt like an artist with it in his control. He felt a sense of limitless potential when he controlled this robot-no different than a painter with a blank canvas laid out before them or a writer staring down an empty sheet of white paper. There was an infinite number of programs to be created, but more importantly, an infinite number of ways to create them. Others would only see the end result; however, the artist sees the process. The finesse of a brushstroke or the precision of a perfect robot pick, these are the unseen moments of creativity, a relationship meant only for an artist and their medium. He saw the culmination of each individual brushstroke blending together. He was Dali, and this was his masterpiece.