CYBER CAMERA PLATFORM (R2D3), 2015
Recreational
This was a camera stand and housing designed to sit in one of the MIT lecture halls (34-101) to record lectures and stream them online. I designed and machined the stand and the housing, and designed it to be tamperproof. It still stands in the MIT lecture hall as of February 2015.
The Design Process
EVALUATING EXISTING MOUNT
The first step was to evaluate an existing mount that was in the lecture hall. The mount was very rigid but it was too close to the railing. Therefore I had to incorporate an offset in my design so that I can build a housing around the mount.
IDEATION & SKETCHES
To the drawing board...A housing made of PVC perhaps? A quick google search concluded that PVC in large diameters (greater than 12 inch in my case) an PVC caps are very expensive.
Perhaps a housing made of flat material that was assemble to fit around the mount. Wood, Aluminum, Steel...cheapest is wood so let's go with that.
3D CAD MODEL
I decided to use 3/4 inch birch plywood from Home Depot. Here's the CAD model I made using Solidworks. The clear dome was a generic acrylic dome made for security cameras. The housing is fixed to the railing with L-brackets.
FABRICATION
After pulling an all-nighter routing the wood with a Shop Bot, I was able to wood glue everything an use every clamp I could find in the D-Lab shop. :)
THE FINISHED PRODUCT
Here's the final product delivered to the customer (""Pancake Barry") as we know him at the Edgerton Center.