Version 4.0 is born - Drop coming soon!

Batteries! Feedback! Talks! TechCrunch!

Hey! Ryan here this time writing the update for the past *checks watch* month-and-a-half. Kelin and I have been working towards a big milestone - version 4.0. This version makes a slew of upgrades that are necessary for bringing the camera to a wider audience.

Behold: Poetry Camera v4.0!

We were originally planning to release a DIY kit so you could build your own camera and put your own spin on it. As we heard from more and more people who wanted to play with the camera, it became clear that most people wanted something they could start using right away. We still want to make something that still encourages creativity, but maybe something that requires less time and equipment. (Of course, if you still want to build your own, just use our open-source instructions.)

So, we’re planning to do a limited drop of pre-assembled cameras later this year. The link will be available to newsletter subscribers first. We can’t wait to start getting cameras in your hands!

So, what’s new in V4.0?

• The camera has always needed WiFi in order to work. Now, it announces when it connects or disconnects from WiFi, making it wayyy easier to troubleshoot.

• You can add your own WiFi network and password onto the camera by connecting to it with your phone. In the old version, we had to pre-program the WiFi passwords with our laptops!

• It has its own rechargeable batteries🔋💪✨ in it so that you can take it on the go. The last version required a portable power supply or wall socket nearby.

• The thermal printer part has been leveled up so that anyone can easily replace the paper. The last version required surgical precision and could break the whole thing if you weren’t careful.

• We’ve moved some of the software to the cloud, so that we can make upgrades to the camera software remotely.

Here are a few photos from the development process:

The grey box there is a printer module. We recreated the kind of easy-reload housing that off-the-shelf thermal printers use so that anyone who uses a poetry camera can easily replace the paper.

Here’s a test print from the new thermal printer module. You can see the text at the end of the printout was a little garbled due to a paper jam. 1 millimeter off in the CAD can lead to big issues, so it’s a bit of a game of whack-a-mole to get it perfect.

Here’s a photo of the cardboard version printing out that it has connected to WiFi. We’re thinking it would be cute if the status message itself was a haiku

This is a screenshot of what the mounting plate looks like now. It had to have a chunk cut out to make room for the thermal printer which is now embedded in the “chin”. So now it looks a little like the Millennium Falcon!

Kelin holding the new camera prototype after we successfully tested it for the first time. We had to last-minute solder together a new power supply! It was a wild ride. The color is dark grey because I thought there was no way this prototype was going to work on the first try and I didn’t want to waste my white and red filament.

Side by side of the cardboard prototype and the 3D-printed version.

In addition to heads-down time in the lab cranking out this new version of the camera, we were fortunate to be a part of some rad events:

1. We gave a talk at SVA about our experience building Poetry Camera and how we think generative AI can be a boon to creatives. We received some very nice reviews. I am very grateful to people who came out to hear what we had to say and asked thoughtful questions.

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2. We hosted a workshop at SVA where MFA students made their own cameras!
   It taught us a lot about how to improve the experience for people other than us using it for the first time. (It also showed us just how much we’ve learned over the course of building this project.) Students experimented with multilingual poems and prompting different subjects and styles. We were so busy running around debugging Raspberry Pis that we don’t have any photos 🙃

3. We demoed at Runway as a part of their RNA (Research and Art) event series. Here we debuted a new mode - Verb Mode, which writes poems only using verbs. The next RNA event is in San Francisco - check it out if you’re in town!

4. We spoke at Sequoia NYC about our playful vision for AI products. It was nice to meet many nerds!

   

   

   

   

Other news:

1. Kelin is going to be working on Poetry Camera as a part of the IDEO CoLab Creative Residency! This comes with a grant to support our work and a community of creatives pursuing independent projects. Thank you IDEO for supporting us.

2. Kelin whipped together a fresh version of the website, which you probably saw before signing up for this newsletter. It got a feature by Typewolf. Three cheers for Gooper!

3. Poetry Camera got written up in TechCrunch, which got a lot of new folks excited about the camera. Thank you so much Haje for telling our story!

Okay, that’s it for updates!

We would love to get to know you all more. Replies will go straight to our inbox.

Poetry Camera is just two people — Kelin and Ryan. What excites you about Poetry Camera? Where are you based? How will you use your camera when you get one? Travel? Parties? Fortune-telling?

In rhyme and rhizome,
Kelin & Ryan