Scenic

 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.

 
Cable-mounted Scenic camera slider prototype on a workshop bench
 

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.

 
Four-panel time-lapse showing the Scenic slider traversing a dorm lunchroom

Early trial in my college dorm room above the lunchroom

Split-screen time-lapse of pedestrians along a tree-lined campus walkway

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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