Functionally useless, but a beautiful art form nonetheless…sort of like a Rube Goldberg machine for light paintings:

Students at Carnegie Mellon University are using to create industrial light portraits: a massive robot, typically used for heavy-duty manufacturing, that paints with RGB LEDs as if it were a still-life expert.  Jeff Crossman, a master’s student studying human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon, and Kevyn McPhail—an undergraduate studying architecture with a focus on 3D-printing, laser cutters, and industrial robots—are collaborating with the university’s Digital Fabrication Lab to make hi-fidelity, 3D light paintings of real people in depth and color, using a computer-controlled industrial arm, RGB LEDs, and a Kinect camera.

Via the Creators Project.