Things I do when I’m not around…

I was supposed to make a wireless underwater camera for my dad when he goes fishing. Things went south and he most likely won’t be going fishing any time soon. Instead, it would be nice if he could just look around, see what’s going on without needing to move much (that’s what you do when you’re bed-ridden).

So I hacked my brother’s old fork lift toy. Pulled everything out of it. De-soldered wires from the controller. Added a Raspberry Pi, some transistors, relays and other electronics.

What it does

Basically, you turn it on, connect to it with your phone, tablet, computer, laptop or smart TV and then control it with your keyboard, while seeing a live feed from the camera in front of you.

Keyboards are for computers, so I made an Android app that gives you even more freedom. Now you can just touch the screen where you want it to go and it goes there while you hold down. All while displaying the video feed.

As if that wasn’t enough, your mobile device’s sensors are put to good use, so if activated, you can just tilt the device in which ever direction you want buggy to go.

Like a remote presence thingy. I might throw audio in as well.

I know it’s hackish and ugly for now (though it’s kinda beautiful :)) but I’ll fool-proof it next time I get to play with it.