Harmonograph
A harmonograph - oscillating pen and an oscillating piece of paper - rotational oscillation creating pretty things.
Traditionally, the ‘oscillation’ is achieved by having two separate pendulums (more correctly ‘pendula’ (I think), but correct latin seems to be out of fashion these days): one with a piece of paper on a platter; the other with a pen on the end of an arm (so that the pen is positioned on the paper).
One alternative thought would be to use two X-Y plotters driven by simple harmonic oscillator programs. Since X-Y plotters are old (70s vintage) and out-of-fashion, then they have curiosity value and ought to make a rather neat visual exhibit.
Some people have tried making their own plotters:
DIY XY Plotter
LEGO XY Plotter!
Whiteboard XY Plotter
It seems that second-hand x-y plotters are not very cheap, so I then wondered about mis-using cheap printers - use the linear cartridge movement to provide X and Y axes, and mechanically couple two printers to a pen…
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