HERE IS HOW I START MY NOT SO BIG IDEA.

“It all started with a tactile switch 2 years ago ...”

My quest for going round the bushes till I find the solution has more or Less well begun and half done.

Showing you a tactile switch of an infant stage of what I'm going to embark on didn't tell me where it ended at. So treat every thing as: "Will you tell me a story" ~ Charles Brown.

Exploring options and executing options is what most of us didn't realized. Let me quotes from a popular chinese idem “读万卷书不如行万里路”, Translated as: "Travelling brings about far greater benefit than mere book learning."

Ok. The magnitude of what my big idea is not what you're thinking of, but in a personal achievement. Nevertheless, an action has to follow by a purpose. So here it is: Below I showed two articulated monster derived from that little tactile switch. How's that so?

THE PURPOSE

Before it begin, would like to talk about myself. In person, I'm an introvert. So I rely on myself to attain goals.

Two years ago, I required to video take my product Magsavior to demonstrate on the assembly of it. But I have no one to help to hold the camera steady. As usual, I'll have a tripod and fixed the camera and point towards myself. However, those angles were not satisfactory. Lighting is bad, wrong choice of backdrop, etc.

Because of my curiosity and unforgiven of my poor video recording. I begin to Google two key words, namely "Steady Cam" and "Gimbal".

After searching from Google, I've found a chinese company Feiyu Tech selling these 2 axis gimbal for my gopro camera.

Went through some of my thoughts on how to suspend my gopro in the mid air while I can remotely control my tilting angle via a "Tactile switch". Now you know why of first place show a tactile switch.

well, it takes many ideas into working model or prototype. Like I said, I need an extra pair of eyes to look and reflect the views to me so I could know the position exactly. The purpose of the video transmitter obviously stream the video to a monitor away and in front of me so I could see what's going on.

Then, the problems started to surface out. There are too many wires running ins and outs.

Oh, one more things I didn't mention. How am I going to know where exactly the camera are pointing even it is just tilting ups and downs? Of course I need a way to view it remotely, pretty much like watching myself.

At first, it seems to be very confusing. +ve 5 volt for the gopro, 7.4V for the gimbals. But after hours of searching components at the electronic shop. I suddenly have an idea. Looking up at some spots light hanging on a track. Isn't it a bus-bar configuration? Which mean like a breadboard for electronic projects. Simple as that. The only worry I've got is the length and impedance of the cable. Not sure if it can carry that amount of current. Technically ok. For the gopro source voltage. I need to step down via UBEC to convert to stable 5V for the gopro to charge. Lastly, the remote cable need to pull low to the ground with two tactile switch as up and down.

Prototyping Testing

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Once I'm happy with my first prototype, I am all excited to go out and have some action shoot.

Team Powerslide FSK Girls Singapore Visit. Mashed up a video clip recorded by my new steady cam mounting. Still a long way to improvement on the motion. Would like to thank Edmund from Skateline for giving such a great opportunity to videograph this short event. And Ferris, Shun Git, Shun Mun and Benjamin Chong for all the helps needed.

This is an electric-skateboard video that I've been using my prototype gimbal pole to capture and engage dynamic range of motion in all different angles. The result is immersive and entertaining as it is.