Unreasonable at Sea days 27-31

DAY 27

SHANGHAI

In the morning we arrived:

And we got off the ship and had about an hour to walk around Shanghai

Funny street brooms:

And I am continuing to measure radioactivity in Shanghai:

SHANGHAI EVENT / DESIGN THINKING WORKSHOP

INNOVATION CENTER

Finally we arrived at Innovation Works:

Once we got settled we got some food at a Sichuan restaurant: Totally greasy.

funny toilets

Then the event started: . We each gave our 3 minute pitch:

Slides Protei Shanghai Innovation Center 3Feb2013 from Gabriella Levine

… then moved into the workshop. with the media crew as active as ever

We met David Li from the Shanghai Hackerspace. I wish I would have been able to visit Xin Che Jian but we felt compelled to fly immediately to Shenzhen, as there was the New Year’s celebration starting pretty soon, which would prevent us from meeting with seeed Studios and other companies due to their closing early.

Then eventually we left, and head over to the afterparty. Shanghai is super bright: and some stray cats I met up with Timmy and Lexie

Then Cesar and I head to the airport. We decided that we should take off the “safecast” names from our geiger counter, in case I got searched while in transport, and instead we should put on the name of a university. So that’s what we did.

DAY 28

In the airplane, the radioactivity levels were pretty high:

Funny airplane food:

It was interesting to me to see a map with America all tiny on the right side, and Asia-centric visually.

Then we got to the airport and asked for directions to the part of Shenzhen where there are electronics.

And we got directions to a hotel:

Funny subway tokens: And still measuring radioactivity on the subway

CHAIHUO HACKER SPACE, SHENZHEN

We went to the hotel then we head over to the Chaihuo hacker space and met Hao and his girlfriend.

He showed us his Mind controlled helicopter:

and a bunch of makerbot stuff

We head back to the hotel:

DAY 29

SEEED STUDIOS

First thing we head to SEEED Studios

We met Leslie, Hao, and Violet. And had a big tour of the place. Here are all the parts:

and some of the manufacturing of PCB’s

And they are trying to make arduino more accessible to artists so made this funky arduino:

and they’re developing some more robot-like stuff:

What we realized is that they can help us with the manufacturing and distribution of electronics (PCB’s, motor controllers, motors, sensors, communication), but the more mechanical parts of the robotics we will have to source elsewhere (mast – carbon fiber, hull – polycarbonate). Seeed Studios is one of my favorite open source hardware distributors and manufacturers. It is an honor to work with them.

We also see that if they are selling the car robot for about 160 USD, the electronics are quite similar to that of the boat’s (two dc motors with encoders). So, we have therefore lowered the price of Protei’s estimated retail value.

We went out to a really awesome Cantonese traditional restaurant for lunch.

with lots of live fish:

and a really big menu

We left and got some weird snacks that were a piece of wood or something

All over china we saw tons of motorbikes

We head to try to get to the water of Shenzhen, on the sea side. At first we got lost and instead found a crazy hotel

THE BEACH

When we finally found the way to the beach, we grabbed some funny fruits.

Then walked around on the beach
and we ate some beautiful and delicious fruit

And some DISGUSTING fruit although I’m not sure what it was. It was definitely pungent.

As we left, it was evident that the entire city was decked out for New Year’s.

We shared some street noodles

The city of Shenzhen is brightly lit and I love it.

Back at the hotel, we did work and went for a funny midnight snack:

DAY 30

HAXLR8R

The next morning we went to HAXLR8R to visit Cyril. It is a really cool hardware incubator program. They are helping companies develop their product in order to reach the market, manufacture, and distribute (and succeed). The super cool thing about them is how hands on they seem to be, with feedback directly related to the product design and production choices.

SEG and the ELECTRONICS MARKET

Then we went to the electronics market but unfortunately by then there were many shops that were closed for the new year’s.

So many funny copies of stuff:

That day we spent some time in the electronics market, we bought a PC for Protei to use. We bought it in a 3 story giant shop that has probably 3000 computers for sale, every vendor competing for the customer. Bargaining is hugely useful. Anyway, then we head to Hong Kong, for a late dinner with Dawa Ma and Maquin & the family. It was an amazing house and really cool to be there. Then we all got makeovers.

HONG KONG with DAWA MA and MAQUIN

DAY 31

HONG KONG mingling event & workshop

In the morning we took the train from Maquin’s into the downtown Hong Kong near the Harbor where our boat was parked, to the Hong Kong Marco Polo Hotel. We had a few minutes to grab some breakfast… at McDonald’s. I had heard that McD’s in China was a cool experience but is was mostly fancy and western and sort of gross.

We had a 30 second pitch each, then spent about an hour mingling with local folks at the private room in the 6th floor restaurant in the Marco Polo Hotel, then we walked back to the ship for a on-ship workshop with Tom Chi on rapid prototyping. There were mostly students from Hong Kong high schools attending. Amruth had the genius idea that we should all “switch” teams that we present. In other words, instead of presenting our own projects, we each pitched another company. Protei pitched Damascus Fortune. Solar Ear pitched Protei.

MovieProteiTendy – Wi-Fi from gabriella levine on Vimeo.

Then Tom Chi got going: . Eventually, we ended up breaking into groups of students and going through a rapid prototyping session.

What we came up with was a giant amusement park composed of a GIANT robot on the water of which people control individual segments to propel it forwards.

AFTERPARTY

Finally we went out to dinner, led by Catlin and Scott from One Earth Designs. For the new years, Hong Kong was all lit up. We finally got to the building, and I was astonished at high UP the traffic of people spreads. In New York, things are spread horizontal. But here, they are spread vertically. People ride the elevators in each building to every floor, and the crowds continue. In New York, I’m used to office cubicles being stacked on top of the masses. Here it’s masses atop masses. Riding up the elevators, we finally arrived.