Raspberry Pi Helmet Cam #piday #raspberrypi @Raspberry_Pi
Check out this post from Gordon Hollingworth, Head of Software over at the RaspberryPi Foundation about his work testing the 2D / 3D helmet cam rig he has been putting together with the Raspberry Pi mini-HD camera module. He catches us up on the first tests (that we have shown before) and then and shows some promising 3D tests (that require glasses to view so were not the best thing to post on our site).
A few years ago I really wanted to play around with a helmet-mounted camera for my mountain biking. There were quite a few out in the market, but they were quite expensive, and it’s always difficult getting toys past my wife! Because I was working at Broadcom, I was able to get my hands on what we called the MicroDB (the thing David and Eben first showed to the BBC as the Raspberry Pi), and since I had all the software and a bit of competence, I decided to try doing a bit of HD helmet recording.
The hardware I used was based on the same BCM2835 chip that we all know and love. The hardware also had a PMU chip (power supply), which meant you could power it directly from a lithium ion battery and record 720p HD video for about an hour.
So I rigged up some properly engineered mounting. I used a rubber from my daughter’s pencil case (Americans, breathe easy – this is the UK word for what you call an eraser), a couple of cable ties, and a USB socket! I set out on a voyage of discovery…apologies in advance for the lycra clad arses, but It’s something you’ll just have to put up with!
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