I was out back and I was looking at my pond like I usually do most Summer days. Here is a shot of my pond. I built it all by myself. One of my earliest adult Maker projects.
As I walked by and noticed how clear my water had become since changing filters, I thought it would be cool if I could see where my fish like to hide. I broke a few large Terra Cotta pots in half and placed them in the pond to create little caves for the fish to hide from raccoons and a white crane that hangs in the backyard. I immediately that that a my Raspberry Pi Zero W attached to my Dremel 3D printer would be perfect for this project. Here is a link to elinux.org site that walked me through the code to create a Web Interface for my Raspberry Pi Camera.
Since I had the program up and running already, I needed to come up with a to power the Pi and to keep it dry. After a quick run to the store for some Diver grade waterproof bags and battery pack, I was ready to put together my underwater Pi.
These are some photos of the camera in the bag with the battery pack. I also added this little LED light. I think it helped a bit.
Here is the bag floating on the surface of the pond getting some great shots of the fish swimming around. If I wanted, I could weigh the bag to the bottom of the pond (3.5 ft), but I'm not sure the wifi signal would be that strong.
Here are a couple of videos I posted to Instagram. (Note: Ignore the Time Lapse stamp. I forget to change that before recording.)
This entire project was easy because I had a Pi set up for video and timelapse. I just needed to take it and make it waterproof. This was a fun project that I can really explore more deeply by thinking about building a motorized boat around the floating bag that would allow me to steer it around the pond to specific areas and get really tight shots.
Hugs and High Fives!
NP
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