This has been circulating around the net for a bit. For those that haven’t seen it, let me just give you a quick rundown of what is happening. This guy strapped a camera to a chicken’s head. No really, that’s it. There’s some interesting science behind it though. He’s taking advantage of the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex in the chicken. It is basically the reflex that we use to keep our eyes firmly focused on something while our head is moving. In a chicken however, they move their entire head. This means that he can strap a camera to the chicken’s head and have an instant steadicam. At least that is the theory. As you can see in the video after the break, the harder part is getting the chicken to look at what you want it to look at. We also found a conversation about it with the creator,[MrPennywhistle] in some reddit comments.
He should use a better chicken, probably those russian chickens are more calm ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXUeO3auRZg
This is awesome and a bid absurd, I am cracking up here.
LOLz! PETA is going to have a fit when they see this!
It is a cool homebrew experiment. Kudos.
@ yetihehe
Amazing! Really funny video and pretty steady :)
Genius
lol in the awkward silence, i knew the chicken was gonna do that, but i LoL’d hardcore for just waking up
Lol he hacked at chicken? xD
LOL! Very clever. What’s up with the safety glasses? I’m sure the chicken won’t attack him.
Lol, awesome vid. When does chicken hacks get a tag on the right side?
Im going to do that with my Rooster LOL
ahhhh yes the ol’ chicken method :)
i believe this is how jaws was shot
@knuckles904
IDK we have more than enough chicken hacks XD http://hackaday.com/?s=Chicken
Anyone else think of The Flintstones when they saw this?
Question is, what hardware must that chicken be packing to do this? I reckon on at least a couple of three way gyros in its head and a whole bunch of servos in the neck. Maybe some fancy image object tracking by its eyes. Geez that thing must have cost a fortune. :)
Finally! I’ve been wondering what to do with this chicken on my workbench… now I have an idea to work with.
Maybe a new HackAFarmAnimal.com site will be up soon! lol.
Yeah, this is great.
@BiOZZ
Wow, there are a lot of chicken hacks here. Never noticed that before. I guess now it is time to add a chicken category.
I totally called the poop!
LOL! “My wife’s gonna kill me”. cool. I bet servo’s can do this too…
Mike: “BAAAWCK! It’s a living!”
ROTFL
PETA? You mean People for the Eating of Tasty Animals? Can’t see why they’re have a problem with it…
was liking this untill i saw the unnecessary psalm
Had me right up to the biblical quotation. Wrecked a perfectly good Chicken Steady Cam video.
@Tod , you’ve still got yours, I’ve ate mine a long time ago…
Impressive!
Great!
Now we just need layada to reverse engineer it and sell it as a kit!
Possibly the weirdest thing I’ve seen on HAD.
Sorry, but Cats do the same thing if you’ve ever picked one up and moved it up and down.
I love how at around 1:50 the chicken keeps eyeing the microwave… It’s like he knows.
OH MY GOD.
I love this project. My mom has dozens of chickens, I’ll put a few of the extras up on eBay if there are any takers. I’m sure they’d survive FedEx overnight ;)
LMFAO
next up… the chicken controlled segway.
When I heard they put a camera on a cock I had a WHOLE different idea! Anyway chickens can see in ultraviolet so if you want to get the chicken to focus on somthing why not point a flashing ultraviolet light at it?
“I’m Chicken of Borg, your photons will be assimilated!”.
By the way, someone please send a dozen of these camera equipped chickens to movie producers, should they insist in using those stupid puke-inducing shaky cameras.
lol, lost it at “this version 2.0.. a much bigger chicken”
@nes
Chickens have a three axis gyroscope and a two axis accelerometer in each ear. Humans, too. I noticed this phenomenon back when I raised chickens, but I never thought to strap a camera to its head. I wonder how well it would work with a decent quality camera.
I wonder if the reflex still works if you hypnotize the chicken.
@Rachel: We’re gonna need a bigger chicken.
good use of off-the-shell technology
@Hirudinea: there’s also that on some “special” websites…
The video was interesting but the bloopers made it worth the time.
I’m using the chicken to measure it.
They could have used this for the Blair witch project, but they couldn’t afford the chicken.
P.S the chicken has now joined the International Cinematographers Guild and must be paid prevailing wage not chicken feed.
@Rachel: Actually the webcam units built into laptop screens are pretty tiny and lightweight and usually give you around 1.3M pixels – enough for an HD movie, albeit fixed focus and lowish sensitivity. It would probably work ok outside.
The interface is HiSpeed USB2.0, so you’d need to strap a tiny PC to the chicken’s back to make it work though or find a really big chicken or an ostrich.
Im Going to get a 5 piece chicken nugget meal to try this now … and to eat.
@Drake
Sorry, pal. I’m pretty sure that they carefully remove the accelerometers and gyros when they do the chicken -> nugget conversion.
was somebody up late watching robot chicken?
what are you doing walking out of a room marked ‘children’ with a rooster in your hands!
@Charper “I love how at around 1:50 the chicken keeps eyeing the microwave… It’s like he knows.”
Ha!
Congrats, you win my innernets award for the day :)
@nes,
You’re right about laptop built in webcams being lightweight, but at their best they can provide 1280×1024, which is insufficient for HD quality, not mentioning poor optics.
Eh, it’s a living…