2017 - 3D Printing and SE Asia

February 09, 2018

2017 - 3D Printing and SE Asia

The backpacker's essentials.

The travel streak from 2016 continued well into 2017, taking me to several countries throughout south-east Asia. 2017 began in the Abu Dhabi airport, returning from Madagascar and ended in Colombo airport, returning from Laos. 2017 also saw my big leap of faith, jumping from a relatively stable and high paying job in Gwynnie Bee to the roller coaster ride with RoboICSI. 2017 also saw me build my own 3D printer. Having a 3D printer saves a ton of time for any maker and I end up designing cases and mounts around the stuff I make and not the other way round. Consequently I picked up Fusion 360, fine tuned my printer and kept printing all year.

The 3D printer in its early stages.

January began in the AUH airport, on a long-ish 8 hour layover on the way back from an amazing trip to Madagascar. I spent a few weekends of January volunteering for Wildlife SOS in Bannerghatta National Park. The Sankranti weekend was spent in cutting vegetables to feed bears. I also built a better 250mm quadcopter which got me a spot to speak at Kaizen 4.0 in College of Engineering Munnar the next month. We travelled to Vizag in late January for an extended weekend. We also booked a trip to Cambodia for July. Ramnath and Santosh went to the UK for the UKTI Tech Rocketship awards and got me an EQ5 synscan upgrade kit. As it turns out, the EQ5 mount itself would arrive in January of 2018.

HAL Tejas showing its double delta wings. Aero India 2017.

February had three things to it. The Aero India 2017 airshow happened and gave me my best aviation shots yet. Incidentally this was also the first Aero India that I had visited. I spoke on drones at Kaizen 4.0 in CE Munnar, which turned out to be a runaway success. I still get many invites to do a similar talk elsewhere. I resigned from Gwynniebee on February 21st, my birthday, to join Ramnath and the RoboICSI team at SpOvum Technologies.

Drone demo at College of Engg, Munnar.

I finally quit Gwynniebee in March. I also picked up a bit of minimalist photography this month. After joining SpOvum, my commutes rose from 5 Km a day to 30 Km a day. One heck of a ride. I picked an amazing offer from Spicejet to Colombo and booked tickets for a 4 day trip in May. My dad finally retired from over three decades of service at MNJ Institute of Oncology and came to visit us by the end of the month. The RoboICSI team let me apply all my hobbies at work and the difference between hobby and job started fading away. A welcome break from Gwynnie Bee and MathWorks.

Langur at Bandipur NP.

At VIT's Bio-Inspired Design fest.

Dad and I went to Bandipur National Park to film wildlife in the first week of April, stopping by at Ranganthittu on the way back. I happened to visit VIT University as a mentor and judge for a hackathon in their Bio-Inspired Design fest. It was an amazing learning experience for me. I also finally bought my first 3D printer. This was the so-called king of kits, the Tevo Tarantula. It was the only low cost aluminium Prusa i3 clone. And it permitted a lot of DIY and upgrades. We began assembling the Tarantula after returning from VIT on April 22nd. The first print on this was some part for Prasann in the last few days of April. Roshan T John was around to help during the first few runs at home. We built our first terrarium with a little cactus this month. Our hamster, Kiwi, turns one this month!

Tevo Tarantula kit.

Colombo from Galle Face Green.

Colombo.

May started on a good note with the 3D printer. I did a few quick upgrades like a new hotend and a better plate adhesion ideas. The second weekend of May took us to Sri Lanka, the first foreign trip of 2017. We spent 4 days in Sri Lanka, one day in each of the 4 aspects of Sri Lankan life. Day one was in the metropolis of Colombo in the Sinhalese south. Day two was in the former rebel capital of Jaffna in the Tamil north, with a walk to Point Pedro. Day three was in the ancient Buddhist capital of Anuradhapura (the place where Emperor Asoka sent his children to spread the message of the Buddha). Day four was in Wilpattu National Park, the largest wildlife reserve in the country. The rest of the month was spent in refining the new 3D printer, apart from working on RoboICSI. I purchased the 2017 edition of the Nokia 3310 the day it was launched. It finally arrived in June.

Abhayagiri monastery, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

Our rides within Anuradhapura.

Nokia 3310.

June saw me create a Twitter enabled mood lamp, which lights up based on the mood of Twitter relative to India. I also 3D printed a cute cat to cover the Twitter lamp's LED. I finally got the Nokia 3310. It's got awesome battery life and proves to be the most ideal minimalist's phone. I upped the game of the my 3D printer, printing ever more intricate shapes. By this month we were in the final stages of R&D for RoboICSI and were in talks with clinics to adopt the system. This version of RoboICSI did not have a user interface and looks pretty primitive compared to what's currently there.

Minimalism.

Srivani, Angkor Wat.

We set off to Cambodia on July 8th. We landed in Siem Reap on July 9 and spent the next week roaming the ruins of the once-glorious city of Angkor. We faced the Cambodian monsoon, the very phenomenon which kept the region alive and the lack of which contributed to the death of Angkor. We had a stop in Vizag on the way back from Cambodia. The stock MKS Base 1.4 board on the 3D printer gave away and I replaced it with a RAMPS shield on an old Arduino Mega that I had. We got a good deal for visiting Malaysia through Air Asia and booked a return trip in August. By this time we decided to make the December trip atleast to Thailand. We were still unsure where we'll be heading from there. So we just booked a one way ticket to Bangkok on December 22nd.

Terrarium and the stirling engine.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

In August I tried building a 3D printed drone. It ran out of steam after a while and I kept it on hold for a long time after that. In the second half of August we went on an extended weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur with Ramnath, Anitaa and Varun. We flew by Air Asia out of Trichy. Our trip covered just KL and included the fabulous lunch at the revolving restaurant atop the KL Tower. We visited the KLCC Aquaria, the various markets and street food joints and the KL Bird Park. We stayed in a hotel on Jalan Petaling, right in the middle of KL's Chinatown. Towards the end of August we decided to head to Laos as the primary destination in December. The debate now was whether to do it by foot or by air from Thailand.

Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur.

Souvenir shop, Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur

In September I was invited as a mentor and judge for a hackathon at BMS College of Engg, along with Ganesh Shankar from FluxGen. Also, the 3D printed drone project was completed and it flew like a dream. Another long standing plan, the recee of the Bliss In The Hills 1200K BRM route, was done in September. It was done by car with Opendro and Chiddu and not by bicycle. The winding route goes via the wet, lush green, misty rainforests of south India. We also finished the booking of our return tickets from Laos. We were flying to and from Laos by Thai Smile and then taking SriLankan from Bangkok to Vizag via Colombo. Chandu visited us on September 25th.

3D printing a Voronoi vase.

The road to Wayanad. BITH Recee.

In October I set up a home surveillance system based on a 3D printed pan-tilt turret and the Raspberry Pi NoIR camera. With a bit of port forwarding it was accessible from anywhere. By now we had taken the office space in AGS Layout and were in the process of shifting our location to Banashankari from Electronic City. After having a really great experience with my Tevo Tarantula, we ordered and built yet another one for office use to supplement the existing Pramaan V3 from Global 3D Labs.

Twitter-enabled mood lamp, with the cute 3D printed cat.

My second wedding anniversary present from dad. Brooks B15 Swallow.

The rats nest.

I visited Hyderabad after a long break in November. I was invited to visit my alma mater, CVSR College of Engg, to give a talk. Srivani started learning to play the piano this month. Her learning curve was way steeper than mine ever was. In Hyderabad I swapped my Seiko 5 automatic watch with my dad's brand new Raymond Weil. Though a quartz device, it's my first true luxury watch. Srivani got one too! We were saving up for the grand trip in December. The 3D printing improved drastically after a print cooling duct was installed. I got my Brooks B15 Swallow saddle as my second wedding anniversary gift from my dad. It's something that'll easily last a lifetime.

Our Raymond Weils.

3D printed drone.

Pha That Luang, Vientiane, Laos.

Took the Sony DSC-RX100 for a spin on a morning. Cubbon Park, Bangalore.

We went to Hyderabad in December as well. I got a Sony DSC-RX100 1" compact camera from dad. This was meant for the Laos trip as carrying the massive D7200 would be way too cumbersome, given that we were backpacking. Srivani borrowed my dad's Sony Handycam for this trip. We finally set off to Laos on 21st Dec. Our journey started from Chennai after spending a day with Srivani's cousins. We reached Bangkok on 23rd and after a painful 3 hours at the DMK airport, headed out into the city. The city had relatively fewer Indians roaming around than Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. We stayed in a very decent hostel called Pillow & Bread and roamed the city by bus and metro. The main takeaway from this is the stunning shot of Wat Arun against the setting sun. From Bangkok, we flew into Vientiane, Laos. After spending a couple of days wandering around Vientiane and the Mekong, we went upstream to Vang Vieng. We got stuck there for more time than expected due to sudden rainfall. Our hot air balloon ride cancelled, we kayaked for half a day in heavy rain on a Mekong tributary. The last destination in Laos was the temple town of Luang Prabang, upstream from Vang Vieng. We witnessed the ancient Lao tradition of alms-giving and visited the Kuang Si waterfalls, one of the jewels of this charming country. On the way out of Laos, we walked the last 6Km to the LPQ airport with full luggage, cutting right through the town of Luang Prabang. We flew back to Bangkok and then onwards to Colombo. Spending a night in Colombo, we landed in Vizag on 31st to finish the year!