Finally something to automate the boring task of writing on the whiteboard. Hacked by Sprites Mods the Automated White Board takes text input from the Internet and plots it on the whiteboard.

The idea is that if I want the pen to be off the whiteboard, the electromagnet gets released and the spring will push a perspex rod on the whiteboard, thereby pushing the whole carriage, including the tip of the pen, away from the surface. If the pen needs to be ‘down’, the electromagnet will actuate and gravity will push the tip of the pen down to the surface of the whiteboard again. The driver-ICs are controlled by a microcontroller, which accepts the amount of steps the motors need to be moved on a serial port. It then moves the steppers in such a way that they start and stop at the same time, varying the velocity accordingly. For short distances, that gives a neat straight line on the whiteboard.

Source