Hackathon Build
Build18
Build18 is an annual hardware hackathon held during the first week of spring semester at CMU. Builders work in teams of up to 5 and are given $300 to work on any project.
For my team's Build18 2026 submission, we built a cable-driven whiteboard drawing robot.
Demo
Drawing Scotty
A demo of the robot drawing Scotty, the mascot of CMU, and the reference image
Mechanism
Robot Design
- The strings are spooled on the main pulley
- A capstan pulley connected to the stepper motors drive the motion of the robot
- An idler pulley redirects the string to mounts on the corners of the board
- Motors are connected to motor controllers which communicate with the Arduino
- A servo controllers the lift and press motion of the marker
- The system is powered by a 12V wall adapter
Software
Robot Code
The Python backend processes the target image into a set of drawable paths, then streams motor commands to the Arduino over serial.
Draw18 GitHub ↗
Results
Results
My team was honored to win the Astera Lab's Choice award, which is given to the team whose project best aligns with the spirit and values of Astera Labs.