(^30) July 2018 raspberrypi.org/magpi
nspired by a blind cousin
who would ‘look’ around
his environment by way
of touch, Robert Zakon has built
a Seeing Wand that can speak the
name of whatever it’s pointed at.
Housed in a makeshift PVC tube,
a Pi Zero is connected to a Camera
Module that takes a photo when a
push-button is pressed. The image
is sent to Microsoft’s Cognitive
Services Computer Vision API to
get a description, which is then
spoken – using the open-source
eSpeak speech synthesizer –
through a Speaker pHAT.
“I was looking for a way to teach
my kids about innovation through
integration and had been wanting
to test out both the Pi and emerging
Projects SHOWCASE
Build details
are at
magpi.cc/
FheQWt
The wand is
programmed
using Python
Code is on
GitHub:
magpi.cc/
EQurCy
A Microsoft
cloud API is
used for ID
Mistaken
identifications
can be amusing
Quick
Facts
Hidden inside the PVC tube,
a Speaker pHAT is used to
speak the item description
SEEING WAND
One push-button is used to take a
photo of an object; the other turns
the Pi Zero W on and off
I
A Pi Camera Module
at the end of the wand
takes a photo of the
item to be identified
ROBERT ZAKON
Robert Zakon is a technology
entrepreneur and former White House
Presidential Innovation Fellow who lives
in the mountains of New Hampshire
(USA) with his wife and their two
wondrous sons.
zakon.org
cognitive computing services,”
explains Robert. “They were a bit
sceptical at first, but warmed up to
it and thought the end result was
pretty awesome (their words). My
eldest helped with assembly, and
both aided in testing.”
First taste of Pi
Robert’s debut Raspberry Pi
project, it came together over the
course of a few weekends.
Asked why he chose Microsoft
Cognitive Services over other
image-recognition APIs, Robert
responds: “Microsoft did a nice
job with the API and it was fairly
straightforward to integrate with.
There was no particular reason for
choosing it other than it appeared
Point this magic wand at an item and it’ll speak its name.
Phil King lifts the curtain to see how it’s done
Point the wand at an item, press the
button, and its description is spoken