Overview

Mainstream digital interactions are spread over a wide range of devices and form-factors, from mobiles to laptops; printouts to large screens. For emergent users, however, such abundance of choice is rarely accessible or affordable. In particular, viewing mobile content on a larger screen, or printing out copies, is often not available. Sustainabot is a small robot printer that uses everyday materials to print shapes and patterns from mobile phones. The design was proposed and developed by and with emergent users through a series of co-creation workshops in India, and provides a range of potential benefits. Using a large external screen requires significant power and physical space, which are less available to emergent users. Further, the output printed by the robot will persist without the need for a continuous power supply - a resource that is not guaranteed in many of the regions we have worked within. While conventional ink printers are an alternative, they require consumables which can be expensive and environmentally damaging.