LEGO WeDo Spin Art Turntable

I was inspired by a tweet I read.

Today we used the @LEGOeducationUK We Do in a manner slightly different than intended - to make spin paint skulls! pic.twitter.com/bARFGmWGEK

— Mat ✎ Inspired Minds (@InspiredMind5) July 16, 2015

My son and I used the directions in my book to build a robust platform for a spin art turntable.

I pointed out the pieces we needed and he connected the parts with a little bit of my help. 

We connected the LEGO WeDo USB hub to his One Laptop Per Child XO-4 laptop. He has Scratch installed on the XO. I wrote a Scratch project to run the motor at half speed by pressing the "h" key and full speed by pressing the "f" key. The space bar immediately stopped the motor.

I 3D printed some nozzles to make fine drips of paint. I designed them in Tinkercad, remixing a bottle cap design to include the hollow nozzle with a 2mm opening.

I watered down the paint and used my new 3D printed nozzles. 

Part of the project became learning where the "h" and "f" keys were located on the keyboard to start and stop the motor in Scratch.

Once the motor was spinning we were ready to paint! We dropped a little paint onto the spinning turntable and continued to water down the paint until it happily flowed on the turntable.

Together, we created a masterpiece!

The adaptability of the LEGO WeDo turntable whose build instructions are included in my book makes it a perfect project from which to launch other projects.