The 404 Group
Experiments

A CSS mechanical drawing toy

Some patterns only appear once you go around again.

Adjust the imaginary teeth, move the pen, and let repetition do the surprising part. No canvas and no SVG: every mark is a small HTML element placed by CSS transforms.

Likely rhythm5 lobes
To close the line2 rounds
Try a plate

The curve is a hypotrochoid: one circle rolling inside another, with a pen attached away from the moving circle's center. The controls are JavaScript; the drawing itself is CSS.

Why this stayed with me

The picture was hiding in the rules.

I loved Spirograph as a child because I never quite knew what I was making when I put the pen down. I could choose a gear, a hole, and a color. I could feel the little plastic teeth catch. But the picture only arrived by going around. The outcome stayed unknown long enough for curiosity to become the point.

It was pure play with a mathematical spine. The rules were precise enough to produce structure and open enough to leave room for surprise. I was not asking the toy for an answer. I was discovering what this particular set of constraints wanted to become.

AI can feel like that today when it is treated as an instrument for exploration instead of a machine for skipping to the finished thing. There is a meaningful difference between uncertainty caused by a careless system and uncertainty we enter on purpose because we are playing. The best tools give that play rails: legible materials, bounded controls, a path back, and enough resistance for us to stay part of the discovery.