Folks, you’re really stepping up in the push to $1,000,000 and scoring those cool aluminum cases for your OAK modules plus the goals beyond. We’ve added over $50,000 to our total just in the last 16 hours, bringing the total to over $805,000! If we can keep this up, the $1.5m goal of Spatial AI Competition II is within our collective grasp, and just $195,000 to go until we hit $1 million dollars.
Recently several of you have reached out because it wasn’t clear just how to make sure the stretch goals in the campaign are available to them, since they aren’t listed on any pledge level.
To make sure you get a t-shirt, add $20 to your pledge total. We'll ask your size after the campaign.
To make sure you can get the PoE modules at a very low price just for Backers: Add $149 for each OAK-1 PoE and add $199 for each OAK-D PoE module you wish to add.
To switch your OAK pledge from a non-PoE to PoE edition, simply add $50 to your pledge total for each OAK module you wish to switch to PoE.
For example, if you backed at the $99 OAK-1 tier, and wanted a t-shirt ($20), and wanted to change your OAK-1 to a PoE OAK-1 ($50) that would be: $99 + $20 + $50 = $169 new pledge total.
This will help all of us reach the next stretch goals, and ensure you’ll have enough credit in the pledge management system which all backers will be invited to after the campaign closes.
One important thing to keep in mind is the campaign pledge OAK-1 and OAK-D modules will both ship in December, several months sooner than the PoE editions. If you want to be one of the first to get OAK, you may want both versions!
OAK 101: Using Multiple OAK Modules On The Same Host
If you’ve used many hobbyist-professional type computer vision kits, you’ve probably run into issues with the host OS tripping all over itself when enumerating multiple devices of the same type. With OAK this isn’t a problem at all- you're only limited by the nuber of USB ports and the USB bandwidth of the host system. You could theoretically have hundreds of OAK modules plugged in at a time, each running their own neural networks, on a single host.
It looks like the winner of the second Community Friday poll is the Automatic Lawn Mower Navigation project by Jan Lukas Augustin and Silas Raschka. We’ll be taking a closer look at their project tomorrow in Community Friday #3. Speaking of which…
Tomorrow is Friday and that means Community Friday! We’ll once again be highlighting cool community contributors, OpenCV Spatial AI Competition Phase 1 winners, and a little something extra as a way of saying thanks.
Ask The OAK Team Anything, We Reveal the T-Shirt Design and Support for Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 08:58:39 AM
While this was being written, news came in about the massive explosion and resulting devastation in Beirut, Lebanon. If you can, take some time today to give money to or otherwise support a relief organization aiding the human beings affected by this tragedy.
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It’s Tuesday, community! Today is a special one for a lot of reasons: It’s the 3-week anniversary of launching this campaign, and with your help we’re poised to enter the final week with a very good chance of hitting our stretch goals.
Happening Now: Ask the OpenCV AI Kit Team Anything!
Congratulations to Gineesh Sukumaran, Meinte Vierstra , Abhishek Saha, Yixin Jiang and best of luck with your project Vision based Rainfall Intensity Sensing using OAK-D in Phase 2.
Revealed: Campaign T-Shirt Design
As promised, see above the design for the OpenCV AI Kit Campaign t-shirt. We wanted to make it special- so this shirt will have the campaign date on it as well as celebrating OpenCV’s 20th anniversary on the back.
The T-shirt will _only_ be available to backers of this campaign as part of the pledge management system which all backers will be invited to once the campaign closes. If you want to make sure you get a shirt, just pledge $20 or add $20 to your existing pledge.
OAK 101: Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera
We hinted at this yesterday, but did you know that OAK can already take advantage of the new and hugely popular Raspberry Pi HQ Camera? It can, and we’ve already provided an open design for an adapter board in the hardware repository. This adapter board is intended to be used with the FFC variant of OAK, also open hardware.
Less than $9k To An Additional OAK-D Model Supporting PoE
Since yesterday’s update the pledges have kept pace and we’re now less than $9,000 away from the $750,000 stretch goal which also reveals the final Mystery Goal at $1.25 million. Can we get over it today?! Let’s find out together.
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Coming tomorrow: The 3-week campaign summary, more learning, and more community love. Take care until next time!
New T-Shirt Tier, Our Reddit AMA, and Synchronizing Neural Inference and Spatial Data
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Aug 03, 2020 at 11:24:14 PM
It’s Thursday, and if you’re reading this you are probably into computer vision. Us too! So weird that we’d all be in the same place at the same time. In case you missed yesterday’s update, we added a new Pledge Level / Reward, you got a free cable upgrade, and we looked at the 2-week campaign stats.
Yet Another New Pledge Level
For years many good people have wondered: If there isn’t a t-shirt, did it really happen? Science will never know the answer, but I think you know it in your heart: No. With that in mind, we’ve added a t-shirt reward for the folks out there who want to support us and have proof that they were here when it all started.
The t-shirt-only tier is $20, but every backer will get the opportunity to add one to their pledge in the pledge management system. You’ll be invited to the system once the campaign closes. You’ll be able to choose your shirt size after the campaign in the same system. We’ll only be doing one print run of these exclusive shirts, so you’ll want to get in on it.
So, what does the shirt look like? Moo hoo ha ha. The t-shirt design will be announced next Tuesday, August 4th during our Reddit AMA. We’ll post an update here, too. Oh, about that…
Ask Us Anything On Reddit
We’re announcing it here, first, because you made this possible. On Tuesday, August 4th, OpenCV CEO Satya Mallick and OAK Chief Engineer Brandon Gilles will be on Reddit doing a live Q&A starting 12:30pm PDT and going for a few hours. If you’ve got any burning questions, or just want to say hi, this would be a great time for it. We hope you’ll join us!
OAK 101: Hard Sync Between Neural Inference and Spatial Data
A big problem with building TECH is keeping the streams of data synchronized. Usually a project has to source multiple components with their own strengths and weaknesses, and compromises are made to ensure durability and cost effectiveness. Then you get the system's components actually talking with each other. With OAK-D, we’ve done all that work for you, so you can just get down to creating.
A good example of this is the above video, demonstrating a hard sync between the 4K camera feed and the stereo neural inference being run at the same time. You’ll notice that even while moving very quickly the bounding box tracks the subject precisely. This demo is a pull request right now, but it’ll be merged to main soon.
Community Friday Approaches
Tomorrow is Friday and that means tomorrow is Community Friday, where we shine and extra spotlight on you, the community. We’ll take a look at the winners of the OpenCV AI Kit Community Friday #1 Poll. 91 voters chose the “At Home Work-out Assistance Device” project by Daniel Rodriguez Prezzo, Gustavo Camargo Rocha Lima, Natalia Souza Soares, and Victory Gouveia De Menezes Lyra. As a bonus, we’ll also be coving “Autonomous UV disinfecting robot using OpenCV AI Kit OAK-D” from Oscar Santiago Noreña Hemelberg and Jose Manuel Noreña Hemelberg. Tomorrow's update will have a new poll.
Thanks to some boosts from you on Twitter and LinkedIn, we’re just $93,000 away from reaching the next stretch goal AND revealing Mystery Goal #2. WHAT COULD IT BE? We’ll find out together once we cross the $750,000 threshold. Keep your likes, shares, subscribes, and comments coming!
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That’s all for today! Good luck out there, everyone, and we’ll see you tomorrow for Community Friday.
Did You Know OAK is Open Hardware? Plus: Mystery Goal #2 is Almost Revealed and We're Doing a Reddit AMA Tomorrow
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Aug 03, 2020 at 06:31:24 PM
Welcome to August, OAK community! Well, technically our first August post was yesterday when we reminded you about the Reddit AMA, in fact, let’s start there again today...
OAK's first Reddit AMA is tomorrow! You can set a reminder for yourself using RemindMeBot (Note: The link in the previous post was malformed. This is the correct one). Brandon Gilles and Satya Mallick will be available on /r/iAMA to answer questions and shoot the breeze from 12:30pm PDT to 2:30pm. As mentioned before, if this goes well perhaps we’ll schedule another one in a timezone that covers some of the other backers from around the world. We're planning to cross-post the AMA to /r/computervision and /r/ai. If you know any other subreddits that would be a good fit feel free to do so while following the local rules and customs.
We'll also be showing a preview of the t-shirt graphic. As a reminder, backers can make sure they get a t-shirt by adding $20 to their pledge for each shirt they want. You will be able to pick your shirt size after the campaign.
OAK 101: Open Source, Open Hardware
From the start, OpenCV AI Kit has been an open source project. Every member of the team is indebted to open source computer vision and AI projects, and it’s how many of us became experienced in the field. One thing that we haven't talked about often, though, is that OAK is also open hardware!
An example of one of the modules available in the hardware repository
This is another one of OAK’s super powers: The hardware ecosystem already extends beyond the modules available as part of this campaign. Did you know, for example, that there is a wealth of freely-available Altium reference designs for OAK-compatible modules on GitHub? They cover implementations such as an integrated Raspberry Pi Compute Module, (seen above) a PoE-compatible reference board, a bring-your-own-cameras FFC version, and more. Using these you can create custom power, interface, and camera configurations without reinventing the wheel. You can even find a design for integrating the the Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera with OAK.
Not many hardware campaigns provide this level of access to their community, but we on the OAK team believe in open source and open hardware as a democratizing force for good, so it was an easy choice. We implore the community to use this power only for Good, or for Awesome.
Stretch Goal Update: SO CLOSE
Just $30,000 to go to unlock the open source Power-over-Ethernet variation of OAK-D, and reveal the elusive Mystery Goal #2. The number of you increasing your pledges indicates you’re as excited about this as we are, if not more so. Keep ‘em coming and we’ll be there in time.
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That’s Monday, everybody. Take care out there and we’ll see you tomorrow for the Reddit AMA and t-shirt reveal!
How To Set A Reminder For The Reddit AMA With Satya and Brandon
over 3 years ago
– Mon, Aug 03, 2020 at 11:28:32 AM
Hope the weekend is swell for all you folks. I'm just dropping in to remind you about the AMA next week with OpenCV CEO Satya Mallick and OAK Chief Engineer Brandon Gilles, from 12:30pm - 2:30pm PDT on Tuesday, August 4th the three-week anniversary of launching this campaign. You can set up a reminder for yourself on Reddit. Other members of the OAK team will be around, too. We hope to see you there!
As I was writing this we just passed $700,000 in funds raised, on a weekend no less! We're now just $49,520 away from unlocking a new, open source, OAK-D hardware variant that uses PoE. Your support on this has been incredible, everyone.
