Here's a little photo essay to accompany Akiba's short summary below of our trip to Kamogawa last weekend. Click on the slide show to access the album along with geotagged google map view of the Kamogawa Valley. More photo's and video to follow. Thanks for a great time everyone!
Paul aka sonicviz aka Komuso Tokugawa

Trip Summary from Akiba aka Freaklabs:

Thanks to everyone that participated in the Kamogawa trip! The trip itself
was amazing and I got the chance to see a completely different side of
Japan. Everyone we met was so nice, helpful, and curious about the strange
otaku group that was interested in the process of rice farming and charcoal
making.

A big thanks also to Chris Harrington who organized everything for us. He
took us around the whole area, introduced us to many people in the
community, and gave us the chance to see what I believe is the real Japan.

The goal of this project is to use technology to improve agriculture. At the same time, it's important not to make it too intrusive on the users of the technology. The main testing ground will be in Kamogawa in Chiba prefecture outside of Tokyo. We'll be testing out different types of sensors as well as wireless communications configurations. Hopefully, the information we get from this project can be used by others for agricultural technology work.