French designers have found a way to hack a 3D Makerbot printer and turn it into a tattooing machine that can puncture the skin up to 150 times per second.
Created by Appropriate Audiences, the machine's robotic build allows it to use a needle that can automatically create any imagined design on the skin by executing a highly repetitive action akin to a traditional 3D printer. According to the designers, their biggest challenge so far is to customize the printer in such a way that it can register the human skin's natural texture and the curvature of that part which is being tattooed.
"Making the machine more accessible is a challenge," said the designers. "And there are many possible future applications - in medicine or in fashion - but our priority is a third version of the machine, which will be able to tattoo any part of the body using a specific architecture. We are currently working on this."
Dubbed "Tatoué," the machine is a cross between a 3D Makerbot and a needle for tattooing. It uses downloaded digital files of tattoo designs that are produced by Autodesk. The process of tattooing begins by inserting the person's body part into the printer while the needle draws the design by puncturing into the skin.
"The idea of our machine is to give tattoo artists a new tool that offers plenty of new possibilities," said the designers.
The French designers first learned about the idea of a tattooing machine after attending a workshop organized by their school, ENSCI les Ateliers, in Oct. 2013. Students at the workshop were asked to use digital material readily accessible in the public domain in order to create something new.
In a span of eight hours, the designing team at Appropriate Audiences was able to create a robotic machine that can ink real tattoos on real skin. The first tattooed image they placed on a real person's arm was a circle which is "the perfect shape to test the precision of the process," describes the designers.
The team admitted that they had difficulty in repeating the same exercise using a curved surface and a material which is more flexible than silicone. After trying several tricks that include elastics, a metal ring, and scotch tape in order to tighten the surrounding skin area, they finally found out that the most effective one to use was the inner tube found in a scooter.
In the future, the team hopes that precision artwork such as portraits and designs that are more intricate can also be tattooed by their tattooing robot.
"The next step for us would be to travel and meet as many tattoo artists as possible, in an effort to discover new practices and techniques throughout the world," said the designers.
