From the “You Know You’re Living In A Late Culture When…” Department: The Disney Research Beachbot drags a variable set of pins through sand to create drawings.

TechCrunch notes,

The artist behind the robot starts a canvas by setting down poles, which the robot uses as markers to finely calculate its position. At that point, the robot can be passed an image file to draw automatically, or the artists can steer it manually. […]

Disney has beach resorts. People would flip out to wake up in the morning and see their favorite characters drawn in the sand outside of their room — and by lunch, high tide would come in and wash it away, prepping the canvas for a new drawing the next day.

[YouTube]