Tech Arcanist

Jetson Nano Hacks

The Jetson Nano Hacks repository marks the beginning of my AI + edge computing journey. When I first got the Jetson Nano, I began documenting some experiment, every bug fix, and every small breakthrough — not as polished projects, but as raw learnings, hacks, test scripts, and discoveries while figuring out how to use the Jetson Nano, run AI models on edge, and work with camera + Jupyter + Python + Deep Learning. Over time, this repo evolved into my personal Jetson knowledge base, capturing the earliest milestones of my AI journey.

What This Repository Contains

  • First-time setup notes
  • Code snippets to get camera streaming working
  • Fixes to common installation issues
  • Experiments with AI models (YOLOv5, hand gesture classification, etc.)
  • Instructions for tools like Jupyter, Docker, Arduino IDE (on Jetson Nano)

Featured Learning Milestones

  • YOLOv5 Setup – Set up YOLOv5 object detection model on Jetson Nano
  • JupyterLab Installation – Installed and used JupyterLab to run Jetson like a cloud notebook
  • Opening Camera with Python – Used OpenCV to read video streams from CSI / USB camera
  • Camera inside Jupyter Notebook – Displayed live camera feed directly within a Jupyter Notebook cell
  • Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down Classification – Created a simple gesture recognition model
  • Jetson Docker / NVIDIA DL Container Setup – Learned how to use Nvidia’s Docker containers on Jetson
  • Arduino IDE on Jetson Nano – Installed Arduino IDE on Jetson Nano and programmed Arduino boards through it

Why I Created This Repo

Because when you're learning something new, especially Jetson Nano, you constantly ask:

“Why isn’t the camera working?”
“Why won't Jupyter detect my GPU?”
“Why does YOLO give CUDA errors?”

Instead of Googling the same errors again and again, I started logging everything I solved, and that turned into this repository.

This repo is proof of learning in progress — not a final product, but a journey.
View on Github –>

My Learnings

  • Working with Jetson Nano’s GPU + CUDA + cuDNN
  • Configuring Deep Learning environments on ARM boards
  • Running Python AI models on edge devices
  • Working with CSI and USB cameras in OpenCV
  • Using Docker containers for ML deployments
  • Installing and using Arduino IDE on Linux ARM systems
  • Importance of documentation while exploring new tech