The Problem
Organizations of every kind constantly face the challenge of advertising their views and events to an uninformed, and initially uninterested, public. One effective way to advertise information is to create chalk images on the ground. However, rendering appealing, large-scale images by hand is a challenge for people who lack artistic ability. In the absence of a skilled artist, organizations cannot utilize this advertising medium or must accept lower quality work which will detract from the information in the image.
The Solution
The ChalkJET is a proposed solution to this issue. It is a semi-automated system for printing large-scale chalk text and images on the ground. The consistency and accuracy of this technology will enable client organizations to efficiently utilize the ground space as a means for distributing information to a target public audience.
The system consists of eight spray chalk cylinders that are individually actuated by solenoids. The drive system is composed of two wheels with rotary encoders which enables the system to determine its trajectory. The user will pull the ChalkJET across the ground, and based on a virtual representation of the desired text or image, the system will determine where and when to apply a dot of spray chalk to the surface. With multiple “pixels” of chalk, an image or text message will form on the ground.
The ChalkJET is currently only capable of printing monochrome images with no shading or gradients, although shading can be approximated by pointillism if the image is massive enough.
