About Us
Named after Otis Boykin, the father of the modern resistor, we created Otis with the purpose of reducing electronic waste in labs and workshops globally, by promoting the reuse of passive components. In doing so, we hope to promote a more sustainable working environment in the electronics sector.
Otis is a fully automated resistor sorter, that will take over the mundane and time consuming task of sorting the used components that alternatively would have been discarded after their first use. Allowing for their reusability, and a decrease in costs and waste.
How it works
OTIS consists of three sub-systems. The selector, the identifier, and the sorter, all supported by a single board. This design allows the machine to be fully automated, as well as highly efficient. The power of the system in the full load state is kept below 10 W, including 5 W full load power of the raspberry Pi and 4.5 W of the external power supply needed for the servomotors.
From the top, a 3D printed selector is used to feed the identifier with one component at a time. The selector achieves, on average, accurately dropping 50 components per minute to the identifier.
In the cuboid shaped identifier, a camera is used for taking a picture of the component, uses our own image recognition algorithm, and then gives the final measurement of the component with accuracy above 90%.
At the bottom, recycle boxes are place on the rotating disc. Once the reading is processed, the corresponding box rotates to the position below the identifier, dropping the component into the correct box. The corresponding values of each box is automatically determined which means unlimited value of resistors can be determined.
Cost
Retail price for Otis is only £99.99.
Through-hole resistors that are used in electronics laboratories cost an average of £0.0052 each, when bought in bulk. At a retail cost of £99.99, the payback period for Otis is under 4 months. A conservative estimate of 200 resistors used and discarded within a day* is used to reach this figure as roughly 20,000 resistors need to be re-used with the help of Otis in order for it to pay for itself.
If Otis is brought into your laboratory environment, it could save a large proportion of your spending budget and time. From the day that you start to use Otis, money will be saved with little to no operational expense and no extra time.
*estimated with the help of lab technicians at Imperial College London EEE labs
Environment
Fifty million tonnes of electronic waste is produced globally every year (Sthiannopkao & Wong, 2012) and less than 20% of this waste is recycled. The remainder goes to landfills and creates toxic environments as substances such as heavy metals and PAHs leak into the surrounding area.
Otis aims to cut this waste back, and raise awareness of the issue, encouraging the reuse of passive electronic components in order to reduce the negative impact of the electronics industry on the environment, by making the laborious process of sorting used resistors effortless.
What's Next
Creating a sorting machine is just the first step for the technology we have developed for Otis. Our current image recognition algorithm is calibrated and tested manually for different environments, however we aim to improve upon our existing method by using classification algorithms to improve the performance of the identification and optimise our algorithm to a greater range of components.
We also wish to extend our technology to the mobile sector, developing an app which utilises our image recognition techniques to give smartphones the ability to identify resistor values. This could be an invaluable tool in educational institutions, as the importance of the reuse of components can be taught interactively using what is becoming a readily available medium for teaching.
Contact Us
Let us know what you think of Otis, so it can become even better