The design consists of two servos, mounted in a way in witch one servo pans the other on an x axes, while the other servo tilts a laser on it's y axes. The laser is turned on and off with a transistor, and a camera shutter control is operated by a transistor. This is all controlled by an arduino one control board. A camera with a very slow shutter speed (usually 10-13 seconds) captures all movement of the laser, and creates "digital" light paintings.

 

A python based GUI sends strings of characters to the arduno via serial connection. The arduino stores the position of the pan, and the tilt servo in two global variables, creating a sort of "pseudo-vector" as an index for the position of the laser. Commands are sent within {brackets}, and text to be "painted" outside of the brackets. The arduino has a function for each letter, and command, that manipulates the position of the servos, and the status of the transistors controlling the laser, and the camera shutter control.