Build Yourself an AI Powered Microscope – DevConf 2024

Thank you everyone who attended my session at both DevConf Cape Town and Johannesburg
I met so many awesome people during DevConf inside and outside of my session! Thank you for making DevConf 2024 the incredibile conference it was!

I’ve included the slides for those interested in building your own DIY Microscope, or something similar to help you with your own accessibility challenges. If you have an imaging device with some intelligence, there’s so many things you can do!

The project is using a Raspberry Pi 3B (4 and 5 works too). It is build using C# and .NET 8. The user interface is created using AvaloniaUI. There’s nothing better that Avalonia if you need to create small, incredibly fast user interfaces on Linux using .NET. I really recommend trying it out!

The backend is using Azure CosmosDB for storage. The MongoDB VCore Implementation. This is chosen for it’s vector search capabilities. Perfect for a conversational solution using OpenAI.

The slides can be found below

The whole premise of the talk was to inspire developers to think about using all these tech components in your toolbox. Both AI and IoT bits and use it for good. There’s so many solutions that could be created especially for accessibility, to make people’s life a little easier. This is also exactly why I created this Microscope, to solve my own accessibility problems when building IoT solutions. Think about what you could do!

Recorded Demos

Demo of analysing a Gigatron board
Unicorn HATs and dynamic lighting!
Using a Conversational Interface
Looking a ZX Spectrum RAM Chips
Helios Speaks Afrikaans!

The Microscope Tech Stack

.NET 8 (C#) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/whats-new/dotnet-8/overview

Avalonia UI https://avaloniaui.net/

SkiaSharp https://github.com/mono/SkiaSharp

Azure CosmosDB https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/cosmos-db

Azure AI Vision https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ai-services/ai-vision

Azure Speech https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ai-services/ai-speech

Azure OpenAI https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/ai-services/openai-service

Azure IoT Edge https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/iot-edge

Docker https://www.docker.com/

Mosquito MQTT https://mosquitto.org/

The components used can be found here. You can put this all together yourself!

Some photos of the session at DevConf 2024

I hope to see you next time! Happy building and learning with cool tech!!! 😍

Azure Percept

Woohoo!! So excited my Azure Percept arrived. Time to do some playing. 😊

Learning Resources

Azure Percept DK and Vision device overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-percept/overview-azure-percept-dk

Azure Percept sample AI models https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-percept/overview-ai-models

AI @ the Edge https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa8_TsUuotIMuzkLzGNQPIg

Azure Percept Audio Overview- set up and use your voice assistant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9HfwsDGVnU

Azure Percept | Build & Deploy to edge AI devices in minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSBNsEqU5NA

Azure Percept showing Edge Computing and AI in the Agriculture https://youtu.be/1H-U8psvxYE

Unboxing the Azure Percept
Unboxing of the Azure Percept Audio

Cool logo
It arrived!!!
Azure Percept Vision

The full Azure Percept unit

Azure Percept Ports

Lets try some Agri models

Microsoft Developer Cloud Summit 2021

I hope you enjoyed the Microsoft Developer Cloud Summit today! Thank you very much for attending my session: Automating your home or office with IoT Central and Power Apps” It was a lot of information in 30 min, so here’s the content, resources and source code.

This whole session was done using Home Automation devices combined with OBS. Camera Scene changes were controlled with a standard home remote control. So automation doesn’t have to be traditional garage doors or lighting, you can control you PC life too! 😎 Controlling your OBS Scenes with a Home Automation device

Link to Presentation: Microsoft Developer Cloud Summit 2021 Presentation

Topics

Connecting a Pimoroni Environment Monitor to IoT Central

Connecting Azure IoT Central to Power Apps and Power Automate

Arduino Smart Watering Kit with Azure IoT Central

Building an Azure IoT Central “Gateway” using Node-RED

Flashing Sonoff Devices with TASMOTA

Controlling your OBS Scenes with a Home Automation device

Installing Node-RED in a Container

Installing Eclipse Mosquitto in a Container

Other Resources

IoT Central

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/iot-central/

Power Apps

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/

Node-RED

https://nodered.org/

Tasmota

https://tasmota.github.io/docs/

Environmental Monitor

https://www.pishop.co.za/store/enviro–for-raspberry-pi?keyword=enviro&category_id=0

Sonoff

https://www.takealot.com/all?filter=Brand:Sonoff

Azure and the Internet of Things at GXUGSA

Always fun to fly to Johannesburg and speak at GXUGSA.    I hope it was useful.

I’ve made all content available.

 

Event:  https://www.meetup.com/Gauteng-Xamarin-User-Group/events/241783761/

 

Presentation:   https://github.com/apead/XUGSA/tree/master/12092017

 

Android Things Weatherstation (Android Studio):   https://github.com/androidthings/weatherstation

 

Android Things Weatherstation (Xamarin):   https://github.com/apead/Xamarin-AndroidThings-Contrib

 

MX Chip kit Twitter Shake-Shake:  https://microsoft.github.io/azure-iot-developer-kit/docs/projects/shake-shake/

 

MX Chip orders available from DFRobot:  https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1616.html

 

This session featured

 

Azure Functions

Azure Iot Hub

Azure Stream Analytics

Azure Machine Learning

Power BI

Android Things

MX Chip Azure Iot Kit

And other Iot platforms and devices (Arduino, Netduino, Raspberry Pi, Windows 10 Iot, Xamarin Iot)

 

MXChip Iot Kit

 

IoT at GXUGSA

Happy Cross Platform IoT’ing