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David

The Threaded Rod

The threaded rod next to a 15 cm ruler

Guess what came in the mail today?


Threaded rod, as you could probably tell from the title and the picture. There's a total of 18 pieces, all of various sizes that you will be able to see in the chart below. They're at the very bottom of the new and improved chart of received items.

These rods did come from India, but they're more well traveled than you might think. Take a look at the tracking sheet. Keep in mind that I don't live in India so the chart goes from the bottom up. Inconvenient, I know, but better than turning it all around.

Delivered - Signed for by : DAN	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA
With delivery courier	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Service Area
Delivery attempted; recipient not home	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
With delivery courier	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Service Area
Scheduled for delivery	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
With delivery courier	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Arrived at Delivery Facility in ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Service Area
Departed Facility in ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Processed at ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Clearance processing complete at ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Clearance event	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Processed for clearance at ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Arrived at Sort Facility ONTARIO SERVICE AREA - CANADA	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Customs status updated	ONTARIO SERVICE AREA, ON - CANADA
Departed Facility in CINCINNATI HUB - USA	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Processed at CINCINNATI HUB - USA	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Clearance processing complete at CINCINNATI HUB - USA	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Customs status updated	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Arrived at Sort Facility CINCINNATI HUB - USA	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Service Area
Departed Facility in EAST MIDLANDS - UK	EAST MIDLANDS - UK
Transferred through EAST MIDLANDS - UK	EAST MIDLANDS - UK
Departed Facility in BRUSSELS - BELGIUM	BRUSSELS - BELGIUM
Transferred through BRUSSELS - BELGIUM	BRUSSELS - BELGIUM
Service Area
Departed Facility in LEIPZIG - GERMANY	LEIPZIG - GERMANY
Customs status updated	CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA
Departed Facility in DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA	DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA
Processed at DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA	DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA
Arrived at Sort Facility DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA	DELHI (NEW DELHI) - INDIA
Departed Facility in MUMBAI (BOMBAY) - INDIA	MUMBAI (BOMBAY) - INDIA
Processed at MUMBAI (BOMBAY) - INDIA	MUMBAI (BOMBAY) - INDIA
Service Area
Shipment picked up	MUMBAI (BOMBAY) - INDIA

First Mumbai, India. Then Delhi, India. After that, the rod got it's customs papers for Cincinnati, USA. Then off to Leipzig, Germany. That was Sunday.

On Monday, the package arrived in Brussels, Belgium. Then the East Midlands, UK. And Monday ends.

On Tuesday, the package finally arrives in Cincinnati where it's customs status changes to Ontario, Canada, finally shipping to Canada Post. From there, it's in the care of Canada Post for two days until we finally received it on Thursday. 

That's a pretty well traveled package if I do say so myself. More traveled than me, and I'm a person.

If you take a minute and think how much shipping and transportation that went through, as well as all of the fuel use and staff wages, the amount of resources used to get 18 pieces of rod, that came in a little cardboard box so skinny you could hardly see it, you begin to realize just how much of an impact shipping a box of, say, McDonald's frozen beef patties across Canada has. You can probably tell I'm really hungry right now, but that's besides the point. The point is that this project takes a massive amount of resources not because of the fact that you need a lot of parts. The main resource cost will not come from the metal or the plastic that is used to build said printer, but the transportation costs. All the fuel, all the wages, all the infrastructure. Ports, boats, all built because of demand for trade and transportation. And we're all a big part of that. 

That's a valuable lesson, is it not?

This is COOL

Camera and projector setup with model




Software and image recognition software




Model inside of software




There's a new software on the street that lets you project an image with a projector onto a model and take a photo, and get a 3D model of the object. And it's name is The Projector-Camera Calibration / 3D Scanning Software. It's a big name, I know. That's really the only name I could find. It was designed by a group of students at the Brown University School of Engineering. The software uses structured light 3D scanning, which seems like a pretty hefty concept but it's not. Let me explain.



So you have a projector casting perfectly straight and parallel bars of light onto an object. What happens when a bar of light is put onto an object that isn't flat? You get distortion. Distortion that can be measured by? A camera. Then the software takes the imgae, looks for these bars of light and uses them to compile a whole bunch of really tiny geometrical shapes that ultimately make the model. Pretty cool, huh? You can get the backside by flipping the model around. Then, the software allows you to stitch the two images together. The more you repeat this process and the more images you take from different angles, the more accurate your image is.

So guess who has all of the stuff to do this? This guy! I definitely want to try this at some point. It's not 100 percent related to my project, but why not? It's about 3D printing. So, if I ever get around to doing that, I'll have to write a blog post about it. So keep posted. It'll be done by me eventually.

By the way, happy New Year! This will probably be the first blog post for my class of 2016, so...

That's that! Thanks for reading.