Turn an old pair of binoculars (or a telescope) into a long range recording device with PiNoCulars. This great project adds a Raspberry Pi Camera Module to an old pair of binoculars.
The Raspberry Pi Camera Module is a great tool for digital making. With it, you can quickly add an 8-megapixel camera to the Raspberry Pi board.
It connects directly to the Raspberry Pi using the CSI camera interface, a thin cable socket on the Raspberry Pi board.
The Camera Module is fantastic for video and still photography projects, such as time-lapse cameras. OpenCV software makes it easy to add computer vision to your projects. With this, you can train a Raspberry Pi to identify objects and react accordingly.
Turn Binoculars into PiNoculars
The PiNoculars project is one of our favourite Camera Module hacks.
Created by digital maker Josh Williams, PiNoculars are a regular set of binoculars, with a Raspberry Pi Camera module fixed over one of the eyepieces.
The Raspberry Pi is connected to the top of the binoculars along with a touchscreen display. The whole assembly is powered by a Goal Zero AA battery pack.
“I was on 18-hour road trip back from Colorado to Michigan with my wife, and I was restless,” Josh tells us. “I had brought the Raspberry Pi and Pi Camera Module along to play around with time-lapse photos in the mountains.”
When Josh looked at his pair of binoculars, he had a brainwave. “Raspberry Pi and Camera Module and duct tape made for a crude prototype,” says Josh.
When he got home, Josh set about refining the build. He now has detailed instructions for two different types of PiNoculars. One follows the duct tape and foam route, while the second is a more complex build using laser cutting to create a mount for the Raspberry Pi and touchscreen.
“I used Adafruit’s [PiTFT] capacitive touchscreen,” says Josh. “Their tutorials made it incredibly easy to attach to the Pi. Josh suggests that makers read Adafruit’s DIY WiFi Raspberry Pi touchscreen camera tutorial by Phillip Burgess and the Ruiz Brothers.
Adafruit PiTFT Plus 320×240 2.8″ TFT + Capacitive Touchscreen: Is this not the cutest little display for the Raspberry Pi? It features a 2.8″ display with 320×240 16-bit color pixels and a capacitive touch overlay. That’s right, instead of a resistive touchscreen, which requires a fingernail or stylus, you can now use a fingerpad. The screen looks much nicer, with a black bezel and glass overlay. If you don’t need a capacitive touchscreen, check out the resistive touch version. Read more.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!