Blog · · Andrii Shylenko
From a Claude concept to a four-axis drawing robot
DRAW 01 is a small desktop robot that draws with a pencil on A7 paper. It has four servo axes: shoulder, elbow, wrist, and pencil lift. The concept came from a session with Claude, and the design was built in KernelCAD Studio.
Open the model in KernelCAD Studio.
How it works
The shoulder and elbow servos move the arm over the paper. A steel rod in a bushing beside each servo shaft takes the side load. The wrist servo sets the pencil angle, and the lift servo raises the pencil between strokes. An ESP32 board in the base drives all four servos.
How KernelCAD was used
The robot is one parametric KernelCAD model, with every part modeled separately. Each joint is a hinge with a set range of motion, so four parameters pose the whole arm. We checked the arm motion for collisions in Studio and rendered the animation from the same model.
Build it
The base is about 142 × 200 mm. Parts:
- 3 mm plywood for the base, arm, and pencil carrier
- 4 SG90 micro servos with horns
- 1 ESP32 NodeMCU board
- 2 steel rods (3 mm) and 2 flanged bushings
- M2 screws, nuts, and washers
- A pencil and A7 paper
Laser-cut the wooden parts from 3 mm sheet, assemble them with M2 screws, and connect the servos to the ESP32.