Tech-infused delights: unveiling the AI evolution on Azion’s cake boss tradition
Work pause. Afternoon coffee gets an extra touch when the “cake in the kitchen” arrives — and that’s the time to gather everyone to enjoy. Here at Azion, we value connection — not just in terms of technology, but also among people — and that’s how began what we lovingly call ‘Cake Boss’.
The tradition of cake at Azion
We have the tradition of bringing cakes to the office for various occasions: celebrating birthdays, joining the company, a promotion, or just brightening the day. But, for this to happen, how could we inform the whole company that the cake had arrived?
At first, we took the standard route: someone would take a photo of the cake and announce it via Slack, our internal communication channel. However, we could use our tech-savviness in a light, spontaneous, and favorable manner, making the tradition more interactive and enjoyable.
That’s when Adriano, a software developer at Azion interested in the Internet of Things (IoT), created a button in the company kitchen. When pressed, the button would be able to notify Slack about the arrival of the cake saying “cake in the kitchen!”.
Prototyping
To bring the concept to life, we used a basic ESP32 microcontroller for the initial iteration of the project and a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Our platform enabled updating the microcontroller’s code, and Azion’s product, Orchestrator, facilitated the automated distribution of applications to Edge Nodes.
With this setup, it would post a text message on Slack whenever someone pressed the button. We promptly embraced the idea and affectionately named it “Cake Boss”, in homage to the famous TV show.
Evolving
Now, we could announce more quickly, but we still couldn’t determine the exact type of cake that had just arrived. To address this, a Raspberry Pi 2 was used to enhance the system.
With superior hardware, but still simple and connected to a camera, it allowed a photo to be taken and posted alongside the announcement whenever someone pressed the button.
To make things more fun, when the button is pressed, it also activates a siren sound accompanied by a Google voice saying “say cheese!”. This ensures that everyone remembers to pose for the photo.
Cake Boss — AI version 🤖
As not everything is perfect, the button started being pressed for fun, even when no cake arrived in the kitchen. We don’t play with emotions this way!
The latest iteration of Cake Boss implemented the YOLO (You Only Look Once) neural network model to check if there was a cake in the photo. The photo will be posted automatically if the confidence level is higher than 80%.
To process these images, we used another Azion product, Edge Functions, which allows computation to run at the edge close to the user, making the process almost instant. ChatGPT, a natural language technology from OpenAI, helped write a significant portion of the code, as the developer wasn’t as experienced with Python, the language used in the Raspberry Pi.
But where’s the barbecue?
Our headquarters are in Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil. In the south of Brazil, we have barbecue as super strong tradition. That’s why the current button version can even detect images of meat and people in the photo to identify if a barbecue is on the way, and it gives an appropriate sound alert.
The algorithm analyzes the photo’s content and chooses a phrase from the available options to express.
#Valid objects: person, cake, bottle, pizza, bowl, cow, laptop, chair, TV, cellphone
if person >= 0 and cake == 0 and bottle == 0: phrase = "Huh, there's nothing and no one here...?"
if person == 1 and cake == 0 and bottle == 0: phrase = "There's someone here... but where's the cake?"
if person > 1 and cake == 0 and bottle == 0: phrase = "There's a bunch of people here... but where's the cake?"
if person >= 1 and cake == 0 and bottle >= 1: phrase = "Is it all about drinking here today?"
if person >= 1 and cake == 1: phrase = "Look, cake alert!"
if person >= 1 and cake > 1: phrase = "Oh, it's a cake festival!"
if person == 0 and cake == 1: phrase = "Someone left a cake in the kitchen!"
if person == 0 and cake > 1: phrase = "Looks like they forgot their cakes in the kitchen, folks!"Components used in building Cake Boss
- Raspberry Pi 2
- Memory card (8GB microSD)
- Micro USB 3A power supply
- RaspiCam camera module
- USB Bluetooth module (to play music from a phone on Cake Boss)
- Amplified sound box
- Large push button
- 3D-printed enclosure
Now we’re talking — our technology used in Cake Boss is a total success
Cake Boss has been up and running for over 200 days without interruption, and more than 50 cakes have been announced. We managed to turn an offline tradition into a digital action, applying our own company’s products to enhance something enjoyable in our daily lives.
The button fostered a lot of camaraderie in the office, with people eager to take photos with the cake. All the remote workers can also be part of the moment in such a way.
The team even suggested other ideas, such as integrating Cake Boss with delivery apps so that pressing the button three times in a row places an order for cake. This technological playful endeavor, sparked by an initiative, brought teams closer together and strengthened Azion’s culture.
Open Source
Soon, we will release the source code for Cake Boss as open source. This way, you’ll be able to download and contribute to the project on our GitHub. You can also download the 3D printing model and get instructions on assembling the parts to create your own Cake Boss.
Just don’t forget to let us know: we want a piece of this cake too! 😃🍰
This is an English version of the original story (PT-BR)
