Working and learning from home may be the new norm, and if IKEA shelves are any indication, folks are tricking out their home office with furniture, gadgets, and squishy chairs. While teleconferencing has proven to be an invaluable tool, paper documents aren’t going down with out a fight.
Unfortunately dedicated document cameras require significant space and monies, so they’re impractical if you only share once in a while. [John Umekubo] didn’t want students and teachers hobbled by the same costs and inconveniences, so he modeled a mirror holder that slides over a laptop’s webcam and directs the view downward.
[John]’s adventures started with a Twitter post, as seen below, but the responses were so encouraging that he published his design on Thingiverse for everyone. There’s also a version that can be laser cut out of cardboard, though we imagine a pair of scissors would work in a pinch. He admits there’s already a consumer model, but wasn’t planning to sell them anyway. Like us, he wants to get people to share their work.
We recently covered a simpler version of the same idea in use at Northwestern University, and we’ve seen a similar hack that gives a split-screen effect to sketch and maintain eye contact. If you want to share the view in your room, we have a Raspberry Pi streaming option that’s worth checking out.
When your students and teachers need to project their work during Zoom sessions from home. These will go out to all our middle schoolers and their teachers. #remotelearning #documentcamera #laptop #3ddesign #design #designthinking @tinkercad pic.twitter.com/ByJNkaYxar
— John Umekubo (@jumekubo) September 4, 2020
Why would document cameras be expensive? Aren’t they just (web)cams on an armature? I use a cheap mic arm and a second-hand phone mounted to it for my workspace camera. Cost me $11
I think this is the sort of problem that people will solve in a way that is most comfortable to them. I know a fair amount of people who don’t have second-hand phones at the ready.
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/17/mirror-turns-webcam-into-document-camera/
You know this exact link is in the article, right?
Just keeping in handy for next time.
What about a periscope (two mirrors)? First one reflecting left (or right), and the second one reflecting down?
Would this eliminate the need to flips screens in software?
For example, the fairly cheap “horizontal reading” periscope spectacles, available on Ebay…
Well the only accessory that my laptop camera received is a black duct tape to cover it, lol!!
+42
The only thing that’s better than a blinded notebook cam is a not existing notebook cam!
did you also disable the microphone?