The 3D printer that can give you a TATTOO: Students hack machine to give volunteer first inking by a robot

Three students hacked the machine for a challenge set by France's Culture Ministry, hosted by ENSCI les Ateliers, a famous design school in Paris

They first managed to get the 3D printer to draw a perfect circle on skin using a penand then modified it further to tattoo the skin permanently

The main challenge was holding the skin taut to draw an accurate circle - their tattoo design - which was chosen to show the machine's accuracy



One volunteer is the proud of owner of what is thought to be the first tattoo etched by a machine (pictured) - a perfect circle on his forearm

Some people perceive tattoos to be a unique work of art on the skin, etched by skilled artists



But now a group of students have modified a 3D printer to prove that robots can tattoo humans too.



One volunteer is the proud of owner of what is thought to be the first tattoo etched by a machine – a perfect circle on his forearm.



A group of three French design students modified a MarkerBot 3D printer as part of a challenge set by France's Cultural Ministry, which challenged people to remix images and sounds in the public domain.



The event was hosted by ENSCI les Ateliers, a famous design school in Paris and the students set about creating tattoos from a bank of images.



Pierre Emm, Piotr Widelka and Johan Da Silveira had eight hours to make use of their digital materials and managed to hack the printer so that it could draw a perfect circle on skin, using a normal pen.



They chose the circle to demonstrate the precision of the technology as however good a human tattoo artist is, circles are incredibly difficult to draw accurately.



Despite the official challenge being over, the students were determined to create their tattooing machine for real.



They borrowed a manual tattoo-machine from an amateur tattooist and practiced getting the robot to etch the design on artificial silicone skin.

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Raw material: A group of three French design students modified a MarkerBot 3D printer (pictured) as part of a challenge set by France's Cultural Ministry, which challenged people to remix images and sounds in the public domain to create something new

Going further: The students managed to get the machine to draw a perfect circle on a volunteer's arm in ink from a Biro within one afternoon, but then decided to continue to modify the printer, installing a tattoo gun (pictured) so the robot could permanently ink a volunteer

‘The big difficulty was to repeat the same exercise on a curved surface and on a material that has much more flexibility than silicone,’ Mr Emm told NPR.



The students explored different methods of holding the skin taut where the tattoo was planned, including a metal ring and elastic bands, but finally settled on a tube with an open area where the skin was to be marked.



They did not find it hard to find a brave volunteer eager to gain the accolade of having the first robot tattoo.



The Instuctables.com website documented the process in detail and has published the instructions to help people transform their own 3D printers into robotic tattooing machines.





PRINTING A TATTOO: THE ROBOTIC TATTOOING PROCESS The students replaced the 3D printer’s extruder (nozzle) with a homemade alternative.



They installed the tattoo gun so it wouldn’t vibrate during the printing process.



Computer software was used to made their drawing – a circle - so that it would be drawn in the right place on the arm and the right size.



They engineered a way of keeping the skin taut and settled on using a piece of tubing.



Skin, as well as the printer and needle were sterilised and ink loaded into the gun before the volunteer’s arm was positioned in the printer.



The students started the motor on the tattoo gun and pressed ‘print’ to begin the rapid tattooing process.

