Why do you need 8 bits wide information? If you need give so much info for a robot a hand painted card isn't the most efficient medium.

Think just a little about the size of the disc that can accomodate 8 layers oh HAND DRAWN squares (or dots)... the problem isn't the focus of the IR emmiter, is the precision of a human hand. Since it's a toy I presume that children usually will try it (at least after you have bored enough of playing with it...), small children have less hand coordination.

If you want to give a look of a mexican sombrero to your project, try a card the size of a 5 1/4 floppy... attached to a step motor and see closest to the center whats the least square that you can draw and maybe you can have your 8 bit wide toy

If you are interested in some ideas google for a robot named wonderborg, it was programmed using a gameboy-like videogame (wonderswan, I think), you programmed (front, right, left, wait, etc) using a graphical interface in the videogame then you downloaded it to the wonderborg and it did the sequence of movements that you programmed.

I've taken that idea and did a robot that had the movements programed using just a phone-like keyboard

It seems that you have found a solution for an inexistent problem, anyway you can have fun... good luck :-)