Action camera #1 - Concept & Intro

In the following post series I'll write about my  new project, that is an action camera, powered by the Raspberry Pi mini computer. The final product should have similar features to the famous GoPro Hero action camera.

The brain of the gadget is a Raspberry Pi A, powered by a 700 Mhz processor with 256 MB of RAM. Should be powerful enough for 720p video and 5 MP image capture.

The "eye" will be the RaspiCam, a dedicated camera for the Raspberry Pi.

The controls will be from micro switches and it will use an 16x2 LCD for status display and configuration.

The software for the camera will be written in Python and will run on a simplified version of the Raspbian OS.

I don't have the full list of components required for this project at the moment, so in every stage I'll write the stuff that you'll need extra from the previous stage.

But for start:

- Raspberry Pi A or B

- 4GB or larger SD card

- RaspiCam

- Display with digital input (HDMI ori DVI-D)

- USB keyboard

- ~1A USB power supply.

For starting up the Raspberry Pi: 

You will need the Raspbian OS from NOOBS, that can be downloaded from here.

Then you'll need to load it on a SD card, following the steps from here, depending on your PC operating system.

Now for installing the camera, you can watch this YouTube video or follow the next steps:

1. Locate the camera port, the one between the ethernet and the HDMI ports
2. Pull the black handle up
3. Insert the camera ribbon cable with the blue side of the end facing the ethernet port
4. On the camera, insert the ribbon cable in the same way, but with the blue face facing away from the camera board.
5. Start up the Raspberry Pi and log in.
6. Launch the following commands:

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get upgrade
• sudo raspi-config - select enable from the camera option

More about the camera install here.

I'm not going to go more in detail about starting up the Raspberry Pi, it's not the scope of this blog.
However, if you have any questions, feel free to comment.