Wipy “Helps” You Keep Your Whiteboard Clean

Do you like drawing on a whiteboard, but hate having to erase your marks? If that sounds like you, then may I present Wipy: the Overly Motivated Whiteboard Cleaner. This bot sticks to the whiteboard via magnets, and cruises around in a vertical orientation using sticky wheels and gearmotors, using an IR sensor array to run over your words and sketches with sponge.

The only tiny problem is that it’s “overly motivated,” using a time-of-flight sensor to detect when you start drawing, then immediately jump on erasing duties. One could certainly modify Wipy’s behavior to act in a more civilized way, as it’s powered by an Arduino Uno, along with a L293D motor driver IC.

As designed, however, at least it has fun facial expressions with a tiny OLED screen. If you want to create your own expressions, you can use the online image2cpp tool for converting drawings into arrays for Arduino/OLED use. This would be useful for creating new tiny faces, or could be applied to whatever other OLED project you’re working on. Instructions, code, print and laser cut files are available via the project’s write-up, and as noted in the intro video below, it will improve your live by at least 300 percent!