It would be a fun project to figure out how to optimize the support material necessary for this printer to raise itself up and move itself around a print that is far larger than itself.
Sort of like scaffolding for commercial construction.
you mean for the printer to print its own scaffolding?
Any scenario where the printer itself moves but continues to print an in-progress object requires the equivalent of auto-bed-leveling. But rather than checking the location of a fixed bed with known parameters, it would probably be checking the unfinished face of the printed object. Sounds challenging...
Yes, exactly, print it's own scaffolding. Sounds very challenging.
Imagine this robot printing a human sized David statue and the necessary scaffolding to raise itself to every position necessary to do so.
The next level would be to design the scaffolding in such a way that it's easy for the robot to disassemble and either directly reprocess into filament or to store for later reprocessing.
The next level would be coordinating a swarm of these robots.
Sort of like scaffolding for commercial construction.