Final Project

Project Overview

This project is a breath-responsive drawing machine that translates human breathing into physical marks on paper. The machine senses breath and converts it into motion, creating drawings that act as physiological and emotional traces of human presence. The drawing is not pre-programmed or representational; instead, it emerges through a collaboration between the participant and the machine. The machine only draws when a person is present and breathing. In this way, the project explores authorship, intimacy, ritual, and the boundary between the body and digital systems.

Conceptual Motivation

Breathing is an involuntary, life-sustaining act that is often unnoticed unless disrupted by stress, illness, or emotion. By turning breath into a drawing input, the project makes an invisible bodily process visible and material.

Themes of interest:

• Emotional landscapes
• Domestic ritual and presence
• Sustainability of the body and the soul
• Human–machine collaboration

The resulting drawings are records of time, care, hesitation, calm, and vulnerability.

System Logic

Human Breath → Breath Sensor → Microcontroller (Arduino or similar) → Motion Logic → Motor → Pen / Drawing Tool → Paper

Breath Sensing Approach

A microphone detects the sound and airflow of breathing. Changes in breath volume are mapped to drawing motion such as speed or amplitude.

Drawing Motion Strategy

The machine will use a single expressive axis of motion to keep the system simple and readable.

Possible Option :

• Pen pressure control
• Breath controls how firmly the pen touches the paper
• Produces tonal variation

Sketches