TARTU, Estonia (Reuters) — Mihkel Joala wants to add a splash of color to the cities of the world.
To do that the Estonian inventor has created a robotic five-color spray-painter that he says can produce murals 100-metres tall on buildings. With it, Joala says he is ready to break world records.
To test his prototype, Joala’s startup company Sprayprinter decided to print one of the tallest buildings in Tartu – the chimney of a local heat supply company.
In order to achieve this, Joala and his colleagues donned climbing gear and fixed the printer’s prototype to vertical and horizontal cords. A computer connected to the printer then sent coordinates to the printer and its motor telling it where to spray-paint, and in which color.
For 14 hours, the printer moved up and down on the chimney to create an artwork designed by Estonian artist Maari Soekov. Eventually, after about 30 cans of spray paint, the image of a girl holding a tree in her hands appeared.
Joala said the message is environmental, in favor of renewable energy resources.
“The main message in this artwork is that we need more plants and less chimneys,” he said.
The image, which now can be seen from many places in Tartu, is 30 meters tall and about 6 meters wide.
Joala’s first idea was to use a remotely-controlled robot that would splash paint as required but that proved too difficult with external elements such as wind or rain. That’s when Joala came up with the idea of a spray-printer connected to a computer and attached with cables over the surface to paint.
Joala envisions the end product as a four-motor suitcase connected by cables to the print-head. It will first be intended for straight surfaces, he said.
A smaller-sized set will be able to print images 4 meters tall and 4 meters wide. A larger set would be able to take on larger projects, creating images of 100 by 100 meters.
Sprayprinter plans to launch its first printers by the end of 2017. Wider production is planned in 2018.
