Hello everyone, I’m Sabirin (D2), a Doctoral Student in Interface Device Lab at Kanazawa University.

In this article, I want to share my wonderful experience when visiting Ogaki Mini Maker Faire 2022.

One day, after a research seminar, Prof. Akita said he would participate as an exhibitor at a technology exhibition named Ogaki Mini Maker Faire 2022 in Japan. He invited students who wanted to attend the event.

At that time, I was interested and asked Prof. Akita if I possible to attend that event or not. Finally, I was able to attend that event. Other students also interested and join with me in that event, namely Mr. Danu (M1), Mr. Shiraya (B4), and Mr. Tokuda (B4).

This event was held for two days on Saturday and Sunday, 3-4 December 2022, at Softopia Japan Center in Ogaki City, Gifu Prefecture. It takes approximately two and a half hours from Kanazawa by train. Prof. Akita gave us (International Students) a translator device with the name Pocketalk. That device makes us easier to communicate with Japanese exhibitors.

During the event, I had the opportunity to visit all the exhibition stands. The exhibitors showed their work neatly, and all were friendly to me as foreigner. Even though communication was a bit difficult because there was a language barrier between me, they explained as hard as they could until they did some additional action to practice their work directly to me. Because of that, I can understand how amazing their work is.

I was curious why they made this work, and almost all the answers said that this is our hobby. Here I learned that if a hobby is pursued with a big heart, it can produce amazing and useful work. And also some of their works are beyond of my mind.

There were many good works displayed at the event, but in this article, I present three of the most memorable works:

1. Hand Gesture to Control Robot by Tsuda College Monozukuri

This student community from Tsuda University demonstrated their work related to computer vision. They made a small robot that can be controlled using hand gestures. Hand symbols are shown on the camera, and the robot moves based on the gesture. Commands given via wireless communication. I think this is good work and can be applied to elementary school children’s education in recognizing hand gestures such as numbers, how to say stop, say hi, say bye-bye, and so on.

2. Learn Python programming with fun by STREAM Laboratory

This is a good movement for this community. They provide python programming learning services with the platform they built called STREAM LAB. The learning method is fun, students build interesting games based on the programming they make using the drag-and-drop feature. Besides students, adults who have an interest in the world of programming can join this class. Oh yes, what’s also interesting is that they teach programming for free. In my opinion, this is a good strategy for humanitarian movements to pursue as many new developers as possible in the future.

3. Entertaining AI by AI Zookeeper

This stand displays several works related to the Artificial Intelligence. They built an object detection application to recognize the hand symbols in the Naruto anime and convert them into meaningful kanji. This is very exciting, they use applications whose libraries are only used for certain purposes related to image processing. The name of the application is Image processing Node Editor. They say the application is open source so that they can use it as widely as possible. They also modified the vacuum cleaner that move according to the AI program using raspberry as the data processing.

I get many insights and inspiration during this journey. I am very grateful to Prof. Akita, who has given me the opportunity to be able to participate in that event, and also to Mr. Shiraya, Mr. Tokuda, and Mr. Danu, who accompanied and provided me with various conveniences during the trip.

Here’s a photo of our team at the Ogaki Mini Maker Faire 2022

Lastly, thank you for reading this article. I hope you get new insight and inspiration as much as possible from here. See you.

Written by Sabirin on Friday, December 16, 2022, in Kanazawa, Japan.