Will Burrard-Lucas is a wildlife photographer. Sometimes that means documenting dangerous animals, and of course, to do this, he needs a good zoom lens and a low profile perch. But it’s not ideal. He’d rather snuggle up with a pride of lions for some candid shots of family life on the Serengeti.
And now he can—virtually. Burrard-Lucas has been building robots (or BeetleCam) for wildlife photographers like himself for the last few years.
In an early version of BeetleCam, he attached a camera to an RC chassis. Not super high-tech, but effective. Next, he added an animal-proof shell and GoPro for video, and recently, a gyroscopic stabilization platform to keep the camera level as the bot traverses uneven ground.
We could tell you his invention is working out just fine, but a video is worth, well, probably way more than a thousand words in this case.
via Singularity Hub
March 26, 2014
