Raspberry Pi projects #2 and 3
raspberry pi
#2 was as a display controller for a kiosk. This is were the Pi would start up from power on, come up, do all network stuff it needed, fire up a web browser full screen and go to a site you wanted to display. For astronomy purposes, mostly useful at outreach events. It takes only 2 watts of power so this could be run in the field standalone, from batteries. The display would take much more power.
#3 was the surveillance camera system, destined to be inside an observatory, outside an observatory and maybe even a wide angle northern aurora camera, or a wide angle weather camera. I used a regular $30 webcam and got very good results of: live streaming on demand (I had it set up in my office while off at a press conference, watching it on my smartphone browser), detecting motion and saving video of that motion plus before and after segments as well; regular interval single frame image.
Awesome. And I think I just saw a reference that you could have more than one webcam on this system as well, saving the approx $50 of another Pi.
The “motion” package also has ftp options for those interested.
Currently a Pi2B sells for $55 in Kingston at Qkits. Accessories not provided.. you will need a 5VDC power supply (about $15-20), a case (about $15-20), an 8GB microsd card (about $15-20). best to try and find a kit
A Pi B (not the same as above) kit with power supply, 4GB SD card and case sells for $70
Next Project: The Tinyastro that Malcolm demo’d a few months back.