Hello fellow robot lover!
I am an illustrator/engineer who creates kinetic works of art that are "living" versions of the characters I draw! I spend the majority of my time developing behavioral systems which give my robots distinctive personalities and ultimately set them apart from other utilitarian machines.

Creating my mechanical children is my passion and pretty much what I spend all of my time doing. Making progress on them requires buying parts, tools, and often new equipment, which ends up slowing down my progress a lot... (robot doing is expensive!)

With your support, I'll be able to explore new frontiers of weird! A supplement to my income would enable me to make larger purchases without hesitating so much. More progress would be made at a faster pace... thus resulting in more robot babies populating the world!

Currently, the apple of my eye is NoodleFeet, the leg-hugger

NoodleFeet is a robotic quadruped made from primarily 3D printed plastic parts and pool noodles. His purpose in life is to wander the ground in search of human legs to lean on. In addition to locating legs with computer vision technology, he has a list of other behavioral quirks which I'm in the process of engineering for him as well. These mechanical systems include retractable gripping toes, licking silicon tongues for each of his four feet, and fluid reservoirs in each leg which will allow him to salivate on the individuals he leans on.

You can see him in action taking his first baby steps below:

Here is a video of me assembling his Brain circuit board:

With your help, I will build him better... stronger... and juicer...
Since his birth at the start of 2015, Noodle has been in a constant state of evolution. I revise his mechanical parts, spin better versions of his brain PCB, upgrade his motors, and even buy him pairs of socks on occasion... all for the sake of getting a little closer each day to my goal, which is for Noodle to be a fully autonomous "big kid" robot, capable of navigating an array of environments with grace and competence!

To see all of my build logs for Noodle, you can visit here: Noodle on Robotic Arts!

...And then what...
The fun won't stop once I achieve these goals. Eventually, my focus will move to another project of some sort. I will begin the whole process again and learn everything I need in order to make it happen.

I may start making something completely new in a few months, a year, or whenever. When it does happen, my practice of documenting my progress and sharing my discoveries will stay the same.

My aim is for this to be fun for all of us. If I learn, I want to share that knowledge with you. If I fail, I want to tell you about my failures and about how I've learned from them. I invite you to hop on my personal crazy train!

More about me, the Sarah person:
I have a dry aged background in traditional art forms, like illustration, painting, and printmaking. No matter, if anything at all... I draw every day.

I illustrate a biweekly webcomic called GravityRoad, which features most of the physical robots I create. It's about how machines think of "art", consciousness, and some other nonsense... as told by vagabond mechanites in a trashy dystopia...

I got into robotics while in art school because someone finally gave me permission to do so. Upon moving home to my native Las Vegas, I became involved with the budding hackerspace, SYN Shop, Which has fed my passion for technology and engineering like oil on fire. My art has become mechanical. My passion is kinetic!!

About two years ago I ran a Kickstarter campaign along with my collaborator, Mark Koch, to fund the production of my first large scale art installation called "Light Play"... It also happens to be a Robot Army in its own right, which you can control with your physical gestures! :

With the help of 289 amazing people, we were able to assemble this brood of 100 miniature delta robots, which we now take with us to cool places and let others play with (Noodle comes along too).

Ultimately, if you become my Patron you will be helping me create more things like the army above. You'll also be giving me more life experiences to draw as a byproduct!

If you want to see my 2D artwork, EVERYTHING I make has a home on my personal site, zoness.com

Thank you for reading!