Making Ultra Expensive Japanese Tea Tins on a Budget

I came home from Japan recently, and one of the motivating factors for me to go there was after visiting Japan House in Kensington, London. It is a beautiful building right in the heart of upmarket London, the items inside are exquisite examples of Japanese products made at the highest standards and of course with a price tag to boot. I remember my eye being particularly fond of some Japanese Tea Tins. I picked one up and almost dropped it on the floor when I saw the price sticker on the bottom. I figured then that I would save that money and just go visit Japan myself and pick up a tin somewhere for a few bucks. It kinda worked out like that.

Here are some of the examples I saw in Japan House London

These ones I really liked but the price tag put me off, I noticed they were standard Tea tins and carefully decorated in hand made paper. Beautiful but out of my budget.

I remember buying a small semi-affordable bottle of room scent and on taking it to the counter, I struck up a conversation with two Japanese ladies who were handling purchases. One was young, one was old, and I spoke to the older lady about the beautiful tins but being shocked by the price, she gave me the dagger eyes which I would later on see a lot more of during my time in Tokyo a few months later. I usually become gung-ho once I can sense disapproval towards me, in people, I tend to take a 'what the hell' approach after this, and I smiled at her, and told her that I prefer Daiso anyway. The old lady walked away from me bitterly, I smiled, and the young lady giggled. It was then I struck up conversation with the young lady, and explained about my Daiso experiences in South East Asia, how it is much more unique than other dollar stores in the western world. She helped me to feel happy to go visit Japan right there.

And that was my story. I of course visited Japan for a while and enjoyed lots, disliked some. I guess it's like that all around the world. But one thing I struggled to find was those damn tins. No exact match, no similar craft stores in all of tokyo. But I did find bare metal tins in Nitori for a few bucks, and I found some authentic Japanese paper in a craft store on Nakamise Shopping Street and I vowed to take them both home and do it myself.

I finally got motivated today, and picked up some glue paste to help me stick the paper to the tin. Here is my experience.

I got my tin, glue and cut some shapes.

The paper came from a book store, it was intended for book covering but I like the colour, pattern, and it was the right dimensions

I glued  a circle for the lid first, cutting the edges like a clock to allow me to stick down the sides neatly.

Then it was onto sticking the big sheet over the edges and main tube.

I let it all dry for an hour, then, with a fresh blade, I cut off the excess at the bottom.

Pressing it all down and smoothing it a bit, I get my Authentic Paper wrapped tea tin, hand picked from various places in Tokyo by yours truly

I don't mind so much that I didn't buy the ones in Japan house, I'm happy that I close my eyes and see the disapproving old counter lady, and I like that each part to it has a story, an adventure, I can recall the sounds and smells of the places in Tokyo as I pick each piece up. Priceless.

Thanks for reading :)

Kreg R3 Pocket Hole Jig Clamp Adapters

Update: Now Kreg R3 includes Vacuum Dust Attachment (No More Mess)

I have a cheap 12v Car Vac which I modified to use a 3s lipo

The hose adapter fits nice and snug with both the hose and Kreg R3

The Hose adapter Leaves no mess it all collects in the Vacuum Collector

Drilling pocket holes is easy, and also clean.

I have a 3D printer and I like to use it, if possible to help me from spending money. It can really help sometimes. For example, I own a Kreg R3 Pocket Hole Jig which I use for making angle joints in various types of wood cuts.

It is useful to also have the Kreg Face Clamps and Right Angle Clamps to help you line up and cut the holes without things moving around or having to hold two pieces of wood together with one hand while drilling with the other.

Unfortunately getting both these clamps will set you back around $60.

I found a suitable replacement clamp on ebay for around $7 - Search 9" Locking Clamp Welding Grip Pliers 23cm".

I designed little adapters and printed the parts using my 3D Printer and they turned out ok.

I uploaded them on Thingiverse should you like to give them a try for free.

Thanks For reading :)

Edit: I added a corner Clamp too

3D Printing with Ai on Nvidia Jetson

Having an Nvidia Jetson allows you to explore what is possible for advanced mobile platforms. Most people using 3D printing have explored adding Bluetooth or Wifi, or connecting a Raspberry Pi and using it as a server/client with something like Octoprint. If I go down that route I usually just buy a cheap bluetooth module and connect it to the 3D printer.

What interested me is to see if it is possible to effectively use an ARMv7 Platform to perform the complete 3D Printing process of Object Design, Slicing for Gcode, and 3D Printer Control. Form what I have seen, all the platforms skirt around the first two; it is claimed that ARM platforms are not suited for CAD software, And using a Slicing Program is also impractical. Hmmm Got me thinking. Admittedly, I haven't tried this using a Raspberry Pi, I used a Nvidia Jetson with Tegra GPU.

Don't be fooled this thing can shift.

I have a Nvidia Jetson Board that I have DIY'ed into a cardboard box style monitor which runs on low current DC 12v power, either batteries or power supply works. I modified the board to run Ubuntu 16.04.

Firstly, I installed Repetier Host (Note that is Host and not Server). I installed version 2.1.3 and it worked straight off the bat. It recognises the Nvidia Tegra GPU, and has nice smooth and quick 3D Object rendering.

I am able to connect to the 3D Printer using repetier host just as I normally do.

Then I installed a Slicing application. I am mostly familiar with Slic3r so I installed that. It too also works just fine. Slicing takes about the same time as my laptop, I tried it out with the Boat file.

Slicer Version 1.2.9 with Repetier Host Version 2.1.3

Positives:

-Both Repetier Host and Slic3r install Just fine, for me no hangs or errors.
-3D rendering and lighting is super using the Nvidia Jetson Tegra GPU
-The experience is the same as using a laptop
-The software is Free

Things I would like to see:

-I hope one day Repetier Host implements a multi-threading option, as it seems that in System Monitor it uses only two CPU threads
-Likewise, I would like to see a Slicing platform such as Cura or Slic3r that implemented the Tegra GPU for processing as I believe it will run very very fast.

What about CAD design? Well, for beginning this experiment, I chose TinkerCAD as it uses WebGL in Chromium Browser and the Jetson GPU handles that just nicely. There is a good list discussion for CAD Linux software here.

Repetier Host also now has a good function which checks if the STL object is manifold and will repair it for you automatically, so bad CAD design skills are ok.

So what now, that we have full 3D Printer platform running on an embedded AI system? Why, we can run Ai code. 

Perhaps we can put a nice tracking selection on the 3d printer extruder and use OpenCV to track the hotend so to ensure the 3d printer switches off and cools should it fail during the print process. A safety feature.

It could also perhaps be used to try and identify the printed object during the print process, a little bit of creative fun.

It leads to the question: Does a drone have to fly? 

Can it be a fully automated engineering robot with intelligent learning and a brain which can detect itself or prevent problems and fix itself as it undergoes it's work day?

Thanks for reading.

Update:
Just two months after I wrote this article, the monied, rich, hustling, 3d printing industry jump onboard with sensational articles and mockups to boost funding, investment and share values.
read here
and here
and here
I mean, who can't afford a 6-axis Kuka Robot Arm these days and under use it as a filament 3d printer, then photoshop some ai bounding boxes, and say you're connected to Milan and Zaha Hadid? Just do Jazzhands and you're set.

Raspberry Pi Zero W on a 3-Axis Brushless Gimbal transmitting Low latency Video to a Laptop

When in doubt, put eyes on it


Here's an example of my Raspberry Pi Zero W mounted onto my DIY 3-Axis Gimbal. It is transmitting video to a Laptop running Ubuntu 16.04 and receiving video using a combination of UDP/Gstreamer/OpenCV, and written in Python. The Gimbal is being controlled manually via a Sony PSP thumbstick connected to the gimbal.

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A post shared by hakuna_matata (@japangled) on Feb 26, 2019 at 12:43pm PST

With enough time we will see some cool things happen. It's fair to say that during my time in japan I felt a great deal of influence in how their robot platforms have been developed.

Pepper was a little bit underwhelming for me

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A post shared by hakuna_matata (@japangled) on Dec 2, 2018 at 2:51am PST

Honda 3E-C18 had nice eyes

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A post shared by hakuna_matata (@japangled) on Dec 1, 2018 at 11:00pm PST

Kirobo Mini was kinda cute

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A post shared by hakuna_matata (@japangled) on Nov 28, 2018 at 12:31am PST

But equally it helped me to understand how Japan uses perceived empathy in it's robot platforms in order to 'help' the user feel more comfortable in accepting the technology. Japan is a really manipulative place you see it everywhere

It uses empathy in train signs to try to persuade you to conform

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A post shared by hakuna_matata (@japangled) on Nov 23, 2018 at 6:19am PST

It makes sense that in robotics, the use of empathy to persuade the user to behave as requested is also implemented

Question is, do you want to behave?

Object Tracking with OpenCV

Just a quick note to show my progress with drone object tracking this time using Opencv. The tracking quality is getting better... Note there is no object classification going on with this example, it is just object tracking.

Tracking of a dirt bike:

Tracking of Person standing in playing field:

I really like some of the different tracking methods in Opencv, some work much better than others in different ways than others.

I hope to eventually add image classification as an optional element.

APM Plane Person Detection: Automating Search & Rescue.

ardupilot.org

With the advent of small-scale autonomous flight we have witnessed amazing video footage. Often these small UAVs fly a pre-planned route set from the ground station and uploaded to the vehicle. The vehicle follows this route from start to finish recording video footage as it moves.

Route setting using a Ground Station software (Mission Planner)

Broad-Area flights are typically performed using wing aircraft which offer greater flight times and cover larger areas than multi-rotor vehicles

Moving forward from just recording video footage UAVs are increasingly being used in search and rescue situations. Winter proves particularly challenging for rescue workers to locate lost persons quickly and with minimal danger to life.

One of the challenges of using UAVs in search and rescue operations is that the operator must sit (or stand) during each flight and visually observe the flight footage in real-time in hope that they can detect a lost or injured person. This can be time consuming, causing the operator fatigue, tiredness, boredom, and eventually loss of interest in accurately detecting lost individuals.

This can have a negative impact on the search and rescue operation.  

In the case of a Lost Female hiker in 2018 a drone operator flew, recorded and uploaded hours of recorded video footage hoping this would help in the location and detection of the missing hiker.

It is a challenging task which not only causes search fatigue, but can detract the search volunteers from continuing their search in organised groups believing that a drone is covering area. It is important to separate drone search from land search.

Automatic Person detection is emerging in robotics and UAV development, using small lightweight systems that incorporate object detection and classification algorithms. These systems are light enough to mount to fixed wing vehicles and embed into ground station hardware without significantly reducing flight times. 

Here we can see the use of live object detection with a flight ground control system (APM Planner). 

Mapping an autonomous flight path using a UAV Ground Station and launching the UAV, we can use the Person detection algorithm to take the hard work out of search and rescue drone flights.

We can read the serial data from the UAV and upon detection of a missing person, trigger a snap shot photo, record the GPS coordinates, and timestamp. This data can be recorded as .csv file

(Longitude, Latitude, Time, File Name) 

Accuracy and detection threshold can be adjusted in the python .py file allowing the software to be customised according to how the terrain and conditions are affecting detection rates. 

As an early stage proof of concept this is simply to demonstrate the possibility of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in simplifying difficult tasks that may be too time consuming to be viable as a human-oriented task. Image quality and flight altitude will factor towards detection accuracy, as will weather and landscape conditions. However, by using this in a methodical and co-ordinated setup utilising multiple UAV each using a different flight pattern we could potentially reduce search and rescue times over challenging terrain environments. 

Links:

https://dronebelow.com/2018/11/20/drones-swarms-and-ai-for-search-and-rescue-operations-at-sea/

https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.05291

https://www.groundai.com/project/intelligent-drone-swarm-for-search-and-rescue-operations-at-sea/

http://news.mit.edu/2018/fleets-drones-help-searches-lost-hikers-1102

https://www.cbronline.com/news/mit-drones-mit