In the fall of my senior year, I took Mechatronics (530.421), a project-based robotics course taught by Dr. Alison Okamura. Our final project was to create an "artbot"--an autonomous mobile robot which created some "art" on a canvas on the floor.

http://www.me.jhu.edu/~allisono/courses/530.421/project2/

My teammate Nick Marchuk (a senior mechanical engineer) and I created a robot which walks around the canvas on six legs, spraying paint from two small cans located in its neck. We named it Can Dinsky.

The artbots met with mixed reviews in the media:

* "Can Dinsky...did indeed seem to have a mind of its own." -The Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.robots09dec09,0,2392670.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

* "...quite possibly the cutest thing to ever come out of an engineering class." -Johns Hopkins Magazine
http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0207web/wholly2.html#vignette

* "...soulless machines..." -Johns Hopkins Gazette
http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2006/18dec06/18artbot.html

* "...entertaining..." -City Paper
http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2006/18dec06/18artbot.html