We searched Google Patents search for similar existing patents, and after looking for a solution to our problem, we found exactly what we wanted to do, with a catch. The only patent we found that would solve our problem and almost mirrored what we planned to do (probably because it is literally the only reasonable solution), was a 9-year-old patent for a product that didn't exist, had no documented sketches or prototypes, required manual effort to use, and was in Chinese.
"The invention discloses a vision-based multifunctional plotter, which includes a plotting substrate, two vertical axes, a horizontal frame, a horizontal axis, a control hand and a main control mechanism; a Y-axis rack is arranged on the outside of the two vertical axes, and the horizontal There is a Y-axis gear and a Y-axis motor; there is an X-axis rack on the horizontal frame, and an X-axis gear and an X-axis motor on the control hand; the control hand includes a transparent bracket, a drawing pen and a Z-axis motor; the main control mechanism includes a PC machine, camera unit, XY-axis controller and Z-axis controller, the XY-axis controller is connected with the Y-axis motor and the X-axis motor, and the Z-axis controller is connected with the Z-axis motor. The invention uses the camera unit to take a view and take a screenshot, and the drawing pen quickly and accurately draws the corresponding graphics and texts corresponding to the camera unit’s view and screenshot on the drawing substrate, replacing the manual drawing and writing of the teacher on the spot, and can also realize the processing of the sketch It plays a certain practical auxiliary role in teaching and improves the quality of teaching."
Price: Time and effort
Features: Comprehensive and able to do most to all homework tasks
Strengths: Capable of complex thought and understanding
Weaknesses: Able to be distracted/procrastinate, makes calculation errors, takes long amounts of time
Price: 15 free images a month, $0.13 an image after
Features: Able to take a description and create a work of digital art
Strengths: Visually better and faster than most humans, can edit existing images(experimental), able to take complex prompts and make variations
Weaknesses: Doesn’t solve math, limited use per month, only makes digital images
Price: Charges for showing full solution steps, but not for giving the answer
Features: Able to take a photo of math problems and automatically solve them
Strengths: Able to solve a wide range of problems and give accurate answers using only a picture
Weaknesses: Photomath will only tell you the answer, not showing the path to the answer or handwriting them
Price: Free if you can find space
Features: Able to write code, essays, music, etc from a prompt
Strengths: Very versatile and can solve a wide range of answers
Weaknesses: It will not handwrite the results and explains in overly comprehensive amounts of detail and breaks down the problem into too many parts for math
In short, the software lacks a good way to be executed onto paper while still keeping a real hand drawn/done feel without effort and cost time, money, or luck to be able to use.
An analysis of existing solutions against what we aim to do:
Chen, Sixin, et al. A Vision-Based Multifunctional Plotter. 16 Dec. 2015.