Did some more KAP (Kite Aerial Photography) using my Hamster Ball camera rig this bank holiday weekend. Great performance from the kite. Using the new longer/stronger line managed to get the kite up to about 150ft.
There was still a lot of violent bouncy motion making the ball and camera swing around like mad. This caused the first of my problems. The MECANO parts of the Picavet cross came apart due to a loose nut. I made a running repair.
The Arduino battery came loose several times before the camera bounced out of the pod and the battery was lost in the long grass. The above picture was one that I actually managed to get. I'll need to angle the camera towards the horizon. It's almost impossible to determine the height due to the lack of points of reference.
Will be trying with a smaller camera and pod as well as taking the Arduino down to components to lighten the whole thing.
Blue "Thread lock" is what you want for the MECANO, Gee Dee's should have some in stock.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we can find some sort of altitude sensor that we can hookup to the Arduino, then add some data logging so it records the current height to the eeprom every time it tells the camera to take a picture.
You could also add a horizon or some from of attitude sensor, that would mean the arduino only took a picture when the rig is level or at least close to level.
Maybe look at some of the stuff they use in the UAV's
Nice Pic tho :)
Yes I think that would be an interesting addition.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to do (and will need help with) is I want to have the same arduino functionality but on a small PCB which I'd like to run from the same battery pack as the camera. I'd also like to put a servo on this that turns the whole rig through 360 degrees.
I like the altitude measuring. Not sure if there is much point on the levelling before taking a picture as a few wonky pictures isn’t a problem. Wonder if you could make it point at specific things using GPS? Or send it a remote instruction?