The Idea
One of my hobbies is rock climbing and I wanted to make a project to go along with that. When I am climbing at boulders I like to record hard problems that I complete. The problem is unless I can find someone to record me, I have to set my phone really far to get the whole wall in view. That is why I decided I wanted to make a mount for my phone that will track me as I climb around.
Preliminary sketch
The original idea came from a product I've already seen that had a camera on a tripod that could move with 2 degrees of freedom. Up and down and left and right. Originally I thought that was a good idea so I planned to have a servo rotating the phone on the mount and another at the base to rotate the whole thing.
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Design
After some thought I realized only up and down movement was required as its the only direction people usually make in the gym. This also makes it easier to program in the future. But the problem was how do I rotate the phone up and down with a servo. So I did some research and I found some professional camera mounts that have adjustable angles that fit around the camera.
It holds the camera from both sides so I decided I would take it and replace the locks on the sides with servo motors to control the movement of the device.
CAD
First I started off by making just a simple box that could hold my phone.
Then I wanted to make a way for the motor to sit connected to the phone holder. I wanted to make it so if there were other phones I could put them in. So I came up with a design for the servo housing.
However I was having a problem making a piece to hold it so I decided to reverse it. Mount the servo to the connecting piece facing the outside.
This way I can screw the motor onto the connector and still have the same functionality. Then I had to work on how I was going to connect the motor to the stand. I figured out how the motor end is sized. My servo has a 25T servo horn inside the package so I had had to make my own.
After a few youtube tutorials I figured out how to make it by correctly sizing one tooth and using the circular pattern tool. I then made holes for 4 screws because I know that the piece that the motors would have to connect to would be too big to print so I wanted to make it so I could screw it into a wood piece.
This is my idea all put together. The long pieces on the bottom are just for reference of what I wanted to do with the wood piece.
Printing Software - Simplify 3D
Printing
Putting it together
First I cut a piece of some scrap particle board I had on hand and then dremmeled a 2mm x 2mm hole in it for the piece i made to fit inside it. Then screwed the piece in.
Then all that's left was to assemble it.
Software
The next steps of the projects are working with the software. At this point I couldn't get it working but I'm gonna keep trying. I'm working with a raspberry pi and a software called open CV. Open CV is a object tracking and facial tracking software. I have it installed on the raspberry pi and I found a way to make the pi move the servos however, I couldn't get the software to communicate with the servos.
My idea is having some sort of vest with something that stands out. Something easy to track. and then take the information coming from the software. This way if I know where the object is with the reference point of the center of the frame. That way I can take that information and use it to coordinate the servos movement.
Reflection
As that is as far as I got I learned quite a bit. In order for all of this to work I needed to print things. My father and I recently bought a 3D printer half for hobby and half for my projects. The problem is that printers don't come working perfectly. I learned a lot about printers such as how different settings effect a print such as retraction and how to fine tune what temperature works best. I spent about 15 hours total just messing with my printer including taking it apart to fix the LCD screen.
Another thing I learned about was object tracking software. I wasn't able to get the last step of making it work but in the process I learned a lot about programs like open CV work. It is basically an AI. You give the AI lots and lots of pictures of what you want tracked or objects similar. You teach the AI what to recognize. So going forward I would do the vest idea because I can train the AI to look for the vest if it had a recognizable icon on it.
Something that I wish to do in the future is work more with some of my friends that have better knowledge on programs such as open CV. I have basic knowledge of code and how to work with programs but its not enough most of the time. Experts are very helpful and that's something I learned in both Big idea and EDD.
Another thing I learned about was object tracking software. I wasn't able to get the last step of making it work but in the process I learned a lot about programs like open CV work. It is basically an AI. You give the AI lots and lots of pictures of what you want tracked or objects similar. You teach the AI what to recognize. So going forward I would do the vest idea because I can train the AI to look for the vest if it had a recognizable icon on it.
Something that I wish to do in the future is work more with some of my friends that have better knowledge on programs such as open CV. I have basic knowledge of code and how to work with programs but its not enough most of the time. Experts are very helpful and that's something I learned in both Big idea and EDD.