# Shapeways: Helping Robots Do Graffiti since 2011

May 8, 2012

[The international Association for Robots in Architecture](http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/) got their hands on a KUKA KR16-2 robot which of course means they had to program the robot to start spraying walls with the sort of style that would make the [Graffiti Research Lab](http://graffitiresearchlab.com/) proud… But how do you get a robot to hold the spray gun? Enter Shapeways 3D printing.

The gripper was printed as a single piece with movable parts, using selective laser sintering – so to get a working gripper, they only had to add two servo motors, connected to an [Arduino](http://www.arduino.cc/) board. The main challenge was then to find a way to let the industrial robot communicate with the Arduino board, to close and open the gripper at the appropriate time. A similar Arduino-based strategy was used to operate a spraygun, the mounting piece was also 3D printed by Shapeways!

Check out the video of the robot in action….