In the not-too-distant future, you won’t settle for just any sneakers, you’ll wear a pair designed and factory-made just for you. “You’ll choose the color and style. There might even be a machine to measure your foot,” says Jasper Potts, UI architect for Oracle Internet of Things. We’ve all heard this vision for a while. But in the age of 3D printing, robotic manufacturing, and vast cloud-based compute power to do things like AI and machine learning, “it’s getting more plausible to make things for individuals—it’s called hyper-personalization,” says Potts.
Oracle’s resident inventor Jasper Potts’ latest invention, a mini factory for “hyper-personalization” of souvenir coasters, will be on display at the Oracle Code One Developer Lounge October 22-25 at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Jasper PottsPuttering in his laboratory at Oracle’s Santa Clara campus, Potts is creating another of his signature demos for the Oracle Code One conference. This time, it’s a personalized manufacturing system for creating souvenir drink coasters. Many aspects of the demo will appeal to developers with off-the-shelf technology such as Raspberry Pi controllers. However, it also showcases Oracle’s suite of IoT smart factory, fleet, and asset-monitoring solutions that are currently in use at companies such as Hitachi Consulting, Vinci Facilities, Noble Plastics, and Bloodhound.
“We wanted to build a mini factory that showed how all these technologies work together in an ‘Industry 4.0’ solution—plus we wanted to give people something to take home,” says Potts. The process will start with an iPad ordering station powered by Oracle Chatbots, where conference-goers can customize their coaster’s design and materials. Upon receipt of the order, the mini factory, which includes a laser engraver, a robotic arm, and a conveyor belt, initiates production of the personalized product. Multiple displays show how Oracle IoT Asset Monitoring, Oracle IoT Production Monitoring, Oracle IoT Fleet Monitoring, Oracle Chatbots, Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud, and Oracle Transportation Network automate a complex sequence of events to deliver a product in real time.
The Matrix-Inspired Demo Is Back
Jasper Potts, a self-described “resident inventor,” is a pro at miniaturizing industrial solutions on stage. His BulletTime Video Ring will do a repeat performance after a stellar premiere at last year’s Oracle OpenWorld Developer Lounge. It features 60 rack-mounted Raspberry Pi devices integrated with back-end Oracle Cloud technologies to manage the capture and processing of slow-motion, multi-angle video footage.
“We were inspired by one of our favorite cult films—the original Matrix film, in the scene where Keanu Reeves dodges a bullet,” says Stephen Chin, director of the Oracle Developer Community. “The behind-the-scenes shows this amazing rig they did with DSLR cameras and green screens.”
Potts designed a rig that achieves a similar result for much less than a blockbuster budget, using custom parts and commodity cloud image processing on Oracle Cloud. Standard Raspberry Pis and Raspberry Pi cameras capture the footage; these are fit to a lighting track on custom, 3D-printed mounts. Beam sensors communicate the camera position of each video for final assembly in the cloud.
“We worked it all out for ourselves. This was the geeky version of a Hollywood high-end production,” says Potts. But the results are inspiring: “Any engineer can build something like this.”
