An underwater adventure all made possible by some exciting new products recently introduced by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Project Inspiration
First and foremost, this project is about having fun with Photography.
The underwater landscape is home to a vast number of aquatic lifeforms. Most of which I have never seen before and certainly don’t know their names. A large part of this project is for me to see what is living in the water. I would love to capture a fish on camera in the wild.
This project will also be a great opportunity for me to experiment with OpenCV on an embedded platform, in this case the RPI 4B.
I believe this project could be attempted by individuals of all ages and all skills levels. In this project, all the components are highly decoupled and are readily available off the shelf in some form, often with only small performance comprises. An example being, a plastic food container versus some custom-built vessel with a viewing port.
Project Outline
- Development of the Nemo Discovery Apparatus
- RPI 4B and HQ Camera Kit - Finding Nemo - Camera
- Waterproof and submersible - Link(Finding Nemo - Vessel)
- Battery operated - Finding Nemo - Power
- Field Day
- An underwater adventure searching for aquatic life - Finding Nemo - Field Day
A Proof of Proof of Concept
A few weeks prior to receiving my lovely new camera HQ kit, I took my GoPro and a waterproof food container down to the river as trial run. This trial was simply just a camera in a food sealed food container. Surprisingly, the image quality was better than I had expected. The image below shows a photo from the camera before and after being placed inside a plastic container:
There is some optical distortion but for a quick and dirty lash-up, I believe the results to be quite good.
Here is a short clip of some small minnows that were stopping by to say hello:
The outcomes from this little adventure genuinely reinforce the value in making and prototyping no matter how simple the build. Discuss lighting, focus, silt, color, perspective...
Proof of Proof of Concept
Did we find Nemo?
Here is a sample I took with my gopro from the same location:
Thanks again Element14!
Project Resources
The Official Raspberry Pi Camera Guide (available in print & PDF for free) (Highly recommend!)
Raspberry Pi 4 Model BRaspberry Pi 4 Model B
High Quality Camera, Raspberry Pi, 12.3 MPHigh Quality Camera, Raspberry Pi, 12.3 MP
Telephoto Lens, PRI, 16mmTelephoto Lens, PRI, 16mm