Project Straylight

Basics

We have a $500 Budget (funded!) to build an educational project to display and demo at the upcoming EDExpo (late February)

Plan

Build a portable, RaspberryPi based Lightboard for recording lessons/lectures/demos. A lightboard allows the instructor to write on a whiteboard in front of them while facing the camera. See: Northwestern Lightboard for examples

Status

Randy has RasPis, a Wolfson Audio board (use or not for audio input?), RasPi camera, a ton of 25mm black anodized aluminum extrusion.

Steven is in charge of the LED edge lighting. We'll need to do some back and side lighting of the subject too.

DMM is looking at an open stack for video switching

Needs

the glass/acrylic

We can get 3x6' 6mm/.25" acrylic for $110 locally. Need to price a piece of similar sized tempered glass (with at least one top and one side edge polished so it can be edge lit) . Not married to the size, but approximately this ratio and probably not smaller than 3x5' or larger than 4x8'. It would be great to find a readily available piece, either something kept stocked or a frameless shower door that wouldn't break the budget. 6mm or .220. If larger than 6mm we'll have to mill out the slot in the aluminum (up to maybe 10 or 11 mm) to fit it. More work and heavier.

Pros/Cons Acrylic will be lighter (and maybe cheaper), but prone to scratching and harder to clean. Risk that some markers might have chemicals that can etch the surface. Glass is heavier, some greater risk of breaking in transport, but won't flex when being written on or scratch.

backdrop and frame

Some sort of black fabric that can be hung behind the subject with low reflection A frame of some sort to set this up on. Height and width TBD based upon the glass size

HDMI or composite monitor or TV

Something the subject can see themselves on. Needs HDMI or composite input so it can be driven from the RasPi Something VESA mountable a big plus HDMI to DVI/VGA adapter might work too with some existing surplus screens we have