by Eduardo Virueña Silva
Superspirograph was another geared toy that was used to draw beautiful designs. In this case, the disc was not confined to a ring, it rolled in a given closed path. The path was made with line segments and arcs that were assembled together. Of course, you could assemble several arcs to form a ring and you would have a spirograph then.
I found this photograph of a SuperSpirograph in Internet.
Computers can simulate a superspirograph [even though it is not as simple as it seems]. The making of the path, and to make the disc to roll on it, is an interesting problem. You can make your own sketches after reading this tutorial.
You may find also interesting to play with the spirograph to understand the concepts of disc, deviation, hole, increment, etc.
You may need GhostScript and GhostView or Adobe's Acrobat Reader for displaying or printing your designs.
To create a .PDF file of a superspirogram, enter the description of your design in the next text window: