Raspberries and Dremel Tools

The official camera module for the Raspberry Pi was just released and I received mine a few days ago. I've had an idea for a neat case for one of my rPis and this was just the kick in the pants I needed to follow through on it. Plus it was nice to get away from my thesis work for a bit.

Backstory: One of my goals for the next few weeks is to get a tracer bullet for a side project involving a  raspPi, an Arduino, a camera stream, and a doggie treat dispenser. I plan to run a Node.js server on the rPi that hosts a game (HTML5/libGDX) starring none other than my dog Lisbeth. If the player wins the game, the rPi will tell the connected Arduino to dispense a dog treat from a servo-driven treat dispenser.  The site will also have a live stream of Lisbeth, who will be alerted by a sound when the game is started. For the bullet a simple "click to win" resulting in the servo turning will be enough for me.

I never purchased an official case for the rPi, wanting to do something creative on my own. I toyed with the ideas of putting together a Lego case but those are all buried away in the depths of my childhood, somewhere far away in the countryside of northern Indiana. A quick search of my apartment provided me with the perfect specimen, an old Panasonic mono boombox (complete with a New Kids on the Block sticker).

I ripped the guts out and went ballistic with a Dremel tool. The rPi sits very comfortably in the back, while the Arduino takes the place of the cassette up front.

I power my rPi through a powered USB hub which I attached to the back of the boombox. Throw in some purple LEDs controlled by the Arduino and we can call it a day!


I'm very pleased with the camera module. I was able to set up RTP streaming from the rPi to my laptop using GStreamer1.0, but haven't been able to embed a stream as of yet.