So the major project that I have been involved in recently was working on an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) that was entered in AUVSI’s 2009 ASV competition. Given a small team (6 people, 2 builders), under $1000, and about 30 days we built what would be considered a feat of bodging and hacks based on extreme ingenuity and resourcefulness.
Note that of the four people in the photo above, it consists of (from left to right) a comp sci masters student on exchange, a political science student, a broadcast technician, and a chemistry/biology student.
So as I prep for a roadtrip, the thought of timelapse occured to me. I have already made some random timelapse test videos using my old Canon Powershot A40 and the software that came with it, however portability was always an issue.
Today, that is no longer an issue, I built in a few hours a frame to hold my old camera and a servo motor, and controlled the entire setup using a Arduino. The setup includes a LCD for display purposes, but in general is meant to quickly satisfy the need to do timelapse for the roadtrip drive. I plan to improve this a little bit, perhaps add a LM317 vreg so the entire setup is self-contained and powered off a 12V wall-wart or battery pack, however time is at a premium.
