To find out if there are pirates in the waters where commercial ships operate, we will compare data from AIS (Automatic Identification System) with satellite images from the same area. If there are more ships in the satellite images than the AIS data shows, we will trigger an alarm. This alarm alerts via flashing lights (Zigbee), Teams and an app we build ourselves.
High level architecture
The image analysis itself is carried out using the ResNet architecture, which Herman has written himself with Python. We get the satellite images from open APIs, the same with AIS data.
Example of sattelite image with shipsTraining the machine to identify ships in imagesResponse from AIS API
The comparison takes place by counting the number of ships on the satellite image within given coordinates, then we compare that number with the total number of ships we find through AIS. If the number is unequal, we assume that there are pirates in the area. This finding is posted in a table in Dataverse, where we have a Power Automate flow that picks up new rows and sends them to our Teams app in addition to triggering a red warning light in Philips Hue.
We also have a React web app that presents data to the emergency response team that keeps track and notifies the right authorities and ships.
The management team of every pirate organization with a measure of self-respect desires comprehensive reporting of all their operations, including both the positive and negative aspects. This can be achieved by utilizing PowerBI connected directly to the Dataverse behind the Raid Management System. By doing this, the management team will have access to all the data they need to effectively evaluate their operations and make informed decisions. The report provides real-time data visualization, making it easier for the Captains to track their progress and identify areas for improvement. Thus enabling them to make data-driven decisions and improve their overall operations.
We have to think both new and traditional when we test our idea of a pirate-free world. In order for us to be able to alert the authorities and ships about possible pirates at an early stage, we have to use tools that are already in place in addition to some new ones.
We think that Teams is a perfect channel to get notifications about newly discovered pirate ships, since it’s something we already have. We have created a Teams app that gives us notifications in a Teams channel. Here we have the opportunity to send detailed alerts on situations that arise and at the same time link to our PoS surface for a total overview.
The PoS surface is made in React.js, and the app is built with Vite instead of create-react-app as this is a much faster way to build. New and hip 😉
Sometime we all maneuver ourselves into bad waters. A zero sum game occurs when you are in waters with an advisory and there are only two options: Either you win the fight, sinking them. Or they win the fight, sinking you. A non-zero sum game however occurs when you both can be victories: There is enough booty for the both of you, and you are able carrying each-other to victory despite adversary.
The crew of @in1 and @in2 crack their skulls together to figure out how this ancient tech called Raspberry Pi and Arduino works. It all runs on flash circuitry, Python, hopes and prayers: Most retro tech there is tech there is.
Team Captain Mats (left) of @in2 and first Mate Håvard (right) of @in1 sharing thoughts on why the Raspberry Pi is not doing what it is supposed to doTeam Captain Øyvind of @in1 is sharing how they set up their Raspberry Pi
A fruitful relationship
The story of Innovations A-team and their First Team was a story of the cut thought battle between two packs of pirates in pristine physical and psychological shape. However after their first love affair over the Raspberry Pi, Captain Øystein asked Swagger of Cloth Sebastian for his input on how badges work. They shared a long and fruitful discussion and are now great allies in this non-zero sum game that is the Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge
Sebastian (left) of the @in2 and Øystein (right) of the @in1 working together to figure out how the Community Champion badge works. They laugh and have fun while sharing theories. Working theory is that they need to cooperate and have fun.@in2 has put up a backlog to track badges. If anyone needs a visual representation, feel free to have a look.
The Orange Bandits is playing music to keep the good vibes going, not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the competing teams.
We are not sure we are hitting all the spots in terms of the music taste but we are doing our best to accommodate all tastes and REQUESTS. Yes, we are getting requests now!
Without the appropriate tools, it is very hard for the Pirate Planners to be able to plan as accurately as they can the different sailings with different pirates when they actually don’t know what pirate with what skill is available at what time. When the Awesome Pirate Corp. uses Dynamics FinOps as their ERP system, we need to create an easy way for the Planners to do their job as easy as they can.
To do this, we have planned to help them by doing this:
Create a model driven app that gets all the data it needs from F&O with DataFlows and PowerQuery (Projects, WBS, Resources, Worker information, Skills for the worker etc.).
The palnners will then use the model driven app to plan the pirates on the different sailings and tasks on that sailing depended on the skill-set they get for the different pirates from F&O.
We will also create PowerBI reports that always shows what pirates are booked for what the next weeks, so that we easily can see if someone is overbooked or if someone has too much free-time and needs to get booked so that they don’t do less than the workforce they have available (more sailings equal more gold to bring back home!)
And then, what use is all this if the pirate does not have easy access to the information when they are out on the ship? We need to give them the tool they need for this, so that’s why we will create a canvas app they can use on their mobile. And, when we first do this, they we can add a lot of other features as well for them. We have planned for this app to:
Give them the option to update their personal information in F&O from the canvas app
Have access to their personal PowerBI showing them where they are planned when
Have tasks assigned to the Pirate in F&O (for example Onboarding tasks) automatically be a To-Do so we can show their To-Do list in the app and they can work with the tasks there and mark it as Completed in F&O when it is completed in the To-Do list.
Create a Power Virtual Agent in the app that can answer questions they need answers to, without needing to bother the HR or other departments (and, maybe they can ask other questions too that chatgpt can answer for them 😉)
Make it possible for them to fill out their timesheets for the week directly in the canvas app
Why we think we should get a high ranking in the different categories:
Excellent user experience: Pirates being out on the see can not use F&O to manage their data and their tasks. This has to be done on a mobile app! And, for those that has used F&O… It is not the most sexy system to use for regular employees and manager, we can give them a lot better experience with an app that can be personalized with their companies colors and logo. And, for all the planners and the pirates, having a very cool and easy way to plan the bookings for everyone, to be done by always having the up-to-date data from F&O is highly useful for them!
Most extreme business value: Our solution will make the workday easier for everyone in the company, every week! This is something we know is a high demand for a lot of companies using F&O today. To give this opportunity, and the possibility to get a lot of more information to every pirate in the same app, so they only have one place to go to handle everything they need to every day, will save everyone a lot of time.
Rock solid geekiness: We use a lot of different Microsoft technology, and combine it together to make the solution as smooth and “easy” looking for everyone that will use it. It will be a lot of flows, api’s, apps, dynamics and Microsoft services running together in the seamlessly and in real-time!
Killer app: Both the canvas app and the model driven app will be such good tools for everyone to use, and the data coming out from them and flowing back and forth should be enough to get us a lot of point here. All the features we have planned for the pirates to have in the canvas app, and have it all work on a mobile phone, will be awesome!
Some times things just doesn’t go your way. So far we have experienced unexpected restrictions regarding the public apis we are using, the Dynamics 365 environment we are editing is constantly locked for changes and one of our team members had to leave us for the day.
It is in times like this we must push through and never give up! Thanks to my fantastic pirate crew that still keeps an awesome team spirit 🙂 The ship will turn, I’m sure of it!!! #bestbuds #happyteam
By this we claim the Remarkable Teamspirit badge! Yarr 😀
UPDATE!!!
This morning we plundered nearby islands and the reward was great. Our camp is now in better shape
When first presenting our idea, the Hack Sparrows shrouded it in mystery. A battle tactic as old as the kraken herself. In the words of Sun Tzu: Never let you enemy know your plan, at least if you have one. Which we most certainly have…
Initial sketch of what The Hack Sparrows wants to achieve.
The Traveling Pirate
Ever heard of the traveling salesman problem? It is a mathematical problem of route optimization: A salesman travels form A to B. In between he has many opportunities for trade. How can we optimize the route in terms of monetary value for the salesman: Which patch gives most bang for the buck, or most buck for the step?
The Bare Bones
We are no salesmen, we are pirates! And based on the presentation many of us are after the same treasures, leaving the best planned pirating rout the winner of pirates. The pirate king!
Our cleverly designed and thoroughly QA’d Architecture (do not double check) shows how we will use state of the (last century) art to enable better piracy.
System diagram showing what the user sees and what the system does. Proudly made with a thieved licenses from our employer. Yarr! (we have license, we just act like we stole them)
On the seven seas the captain has access to a web interface. This web interface uses a Function App to talk to two main services:
We data mine the Barenswatch.io service, which keeps track of all commercial vessels on the seven seas, including the Privateers. And store them in our Data Verse,
The Data Verse updates and stores the crawled data to keep track off ship movement, ongoing raids and opportunities (including flagging Privateers as hostile)
Outside the web interface we use tactile feedback systems powered by Arduino (or Our Raspberry Pi is we can get it working) to warn the user of dangers or opportunities.
Henrik creating the Data Verse tables for the power platform that will give power to platform, empowering the pirats to pirate commercial platform vessels
