Eggs + Sharpies And The Egg-Bot Will Do The Decorating Work For You.

Now you can impress the Easter Bunny with stylish and artfully decorated eggs created by the Egg-Bot, a robotic kit that is available for purchase.



The Eggbot is an open-source art robot that can draw on spherical or egg-shaped objects from the size of a ping pong ball to that of a small grapefruit-- roughly 1.25 to 4.25 inches in diameter (3 - 10 cm). The kit is based on the original design by Bruce Shapiro. The newest version, the "Egg-Bot 2.0," is a modern and friendly update, designed with the assistance of Bruce and his team.



The Eggbot is super adjustable, and is designed to draw on all kinds of things that are normally "impossible" to print on. Not just eggs but ping pong balls, light bulbs, mini pumpkins, and even things like wine glasses-- with a bit of work. In the photos, you can see just a few of the things that you can make with an eggbot: Incredible personalized golf balls, christmas ornaments, light bulbs, and (yes) eggs.




The Eggbot chassis is made of tough fiberglass, with integrated heat sinks for the included motors. The pen and egg motors are high-torque precision stepping motors, and the pen lift mechanism is a quiet and reliable servo motor.




The Eggbot kit is easy to assemble in a couple of hours, and only requires a couple of basic tools like miniature Phillips-head and flathead screwdrivers. You'll also need a recent-vintage computer with an available USB port (Mac, Windows or Linux), plus internet access to download assembly instructions and necessary software.



Eggbot w/ EBB Driver Board The Eggbot kit comes complete with a fully assembled and tested EiBotBoard v2.0 (EBB) USB interface/motor driver board. No soldering or programming are required.



The EBB allows your computer to directly control the stepper and servo motors. The onboard 16X microstepping driver chips along with the 200 step/revolution stepper motors give a combined resolution of 3200 steps/revolution in both axes. A universal-input plug-in power supply (9 V 1.5 A) is included with the Eggbot kit, as is a USB cable.

Basic operation is much like that of a printer driver: you import or make a drawing in Inkscape, and use the extensions to plot your drawing onto whatever object you've mounted in the Eggbot. It's all handled through an easy to use graphical user interface, and works cleanly on Mac, Windows and Linux.



The standard pen holder included with the EggBot kit is designed to fit various art pens including Sharpie Ultra Fine Point pens. However, it can actually fit almost any pen of similar size. If you want to use a pen that doesn't fit, the pen holder is made of wood and can be enlarged to suit your taste.

You can even fit a lot of things that aren't pens. One example: They'll be offering a diamond-point engraver tool as an optional add-on for the EggBot kit in the near future.


above: The Eggbot Logo on an Egg

If you have additional questions about the Eggbot kit, you may want to look at the Eggbot FAQ.

The Egg-Bot 2.0 kit was designed by Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman with extensive help from Bruce Shapiro and Brian Schmalz. The kit includes assembly and use instructions, open source hardware release documents and example plot files.

The Eggbot kit is available here.

Some Of The Sharpest Sharpie Art Out There

above Sharpie art by Cheeming Boey

No, I'm not going to share with you a bunch of cute canvas Keds or even cool Converse high tops decorated with Sharpie markers. No tote bags, backpacks or notebook covers. We've seen hundreds of those already. Nope, instead I'm going to point out some less obvious ways various talented people have used Sharpie markers and pens that are both innovative and impressive.

Sharpie for prototypes

Multi-talented Ruby Heubner (artist, graphic designer, photographer and web developer) who has created a line of clothing (Rudyland) is currently developing a line of great-looking surfboards. They ultimately won't be produced with Sharpie markers, but she began by sketching on surfboards with a Sharpie:



The surfboards that are currently in development will ultimately be digitally printed and laminated, prototypes are shown below.

visit Rudyland here.

Artist and illustrator Eric Ellis created an entire typeface / font using colored sharpie markers to render the design.


You can buy the final font here.

Sharpie as Couture.

Now, for you fashionistas who want to save a buck or $800, here are some brilliant examples of people who have created DIY versions of some very pricey designer items. Great idea!

The Chanel Sharpie Tee:


Chanel DIY Tee images courtesy of Luxenoir

Fashionista showed us how to save about $800 with their own DIY Jessica Cushman Word bangles:


Sharpie as Make-Up.

Model/Mogul Tyra Banks, in her appearance on Gossip Girl as actress Ursula Nyquist, had a Sharpie used to create her Josephine Baker character eyebrows and forehead art:


And Taylor Swift says she reaches for a Sharpie when she can't find her eyeliner:


Sharpie Ad Pitch

The following comps were created by talented artist and illustrator Chad Kouri for an ad agency (I can't divulge the name, sorry) when they pitched the Sharpie account. Unfortunately, they did not win it, but here's some of the fun Sharpie work created for the pitch by Chad:








Sharpie as Decoration

Artist Peter Bragino uses many types of media for much of his fine art which ranges greatly. But, amongst the paints and pens, he uses Sharpie markers to decorate guitars, banjos and even himself, as you can see from the images below.




See his site here.

And just some of the phenomenal Sharpie drawn cups by artist Cheeming Boey. (I could write an entire post on these alone).




Cheeming Boey sells his amazing Sharpie decorated styrofoam cups here.

Related posts:


•And You Thought Sharpies Were For Writing Your name In Your Undies
•Sharpies Rock The Runway: Rodarte tattoos


What the heck is the Sharpie Squad?


You may have noticed that I've blogged a few times about the amazing things people do with the Sharpie pens and markers. As a result, it was a nice honor for me to be asked to join the 2010 Sharpie Squad, a group of artists, designers, bloggers and more that use, enjoy and/or promote work created with the hundreds of types of Sharpie markers and pens on the market. They even made a funny little avatar of each of the members - that is mine is shown above.

Now, I want to introduce you to some of the other members and their websites, so you can see how they've promoted Sharpie work of their own and others. You may have seen some of their work in this post and previous posts of mine.

Mark Rivard (Skateboard Art)
Travis Todd ( Sharpies cars, bikes and more)
Hanna Agar (DIY Recycled Sharpie Artist)
Linda Ellett ("Lesperancetile" on ETSY.com)
Laura Kelly (Girly Artist)
Debbie Bookstaber (Mamanista)
Kristin Lesney (Our Ordinary Life)
Corine Ingrassia (Complicated Mama)
Heather Batts (The Domestic Diva)
Allison Whitmore (One Pearl Button)
Erica Domesek (PS I Made this)
Tali Buchler (Growing Up Creative)
Derek Benson (Lunch Bag Art)
Jon E. Nimetz (SuperFine Art)



And there's a lot more to see at Sharpie Uncapped and The Sharpie blog.