Scenic: Smartphone Time-lapse Slider
My freshman year, I wanted an automated time-lapse slider, but they were shockingly expensive (>$2k+). My roommate Andy Zhao and I created Scenic instead: an inexpensive, motorized slider that travels along a cable stretched between two anchor points.
The small, 3d-printed rig can drive up and down a taut line using a continuous servo at up to a 10% grade. An in-built accelerometer compensates for changes in tilt of the camera and produces stable and smooth film. All of this is controlled between two Arduinos, one receiver and one controller. The two communicate via Bluetooth, allowing the user to interact with Scenic from long distances.
Early trial in my college dorm room above the lunchroom
Trial above the central walkway campus
The final slider combines software stabilization with the hardware slider and results in a smooth time lapse:
The final project was awarded top ESE 111 project at Penn, an introductory Electrical Engineering & Systems Engineering class that 80+ freshmen take. We were required to make a sales video, shown below. Pls excuse the cheesiness of it.
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