The staff here at Scootercam Worldwide have been tied up with a number of recent projects, and more than a few issues have come up. Here’s where we’re at:
Raspberry Pi Camera Controller
Scootercam’s video operations begin with the cameras themselves, but it’s a Raspberry Pi 5 that brings the images to the website. The little controller is ideally suited for repeated, time-scheduled picture-taking and movie-making. We’ve been working on a single, unified controller for the cameras. Here’s why that’s important.
Scootercam started small and we kept adding new functions, and they all ran as individual scripts on individual schedules. Over time it became a hot mess of scripts and apps, that somehow worked well-enough. It was grossly inefficient underneath, and its tasks were not at all coordinated. If we added a new camera or camera function, we’d exponentially increased the degree of difficulty and the consequences of mistakes. We wanted a system where a single controller managed everything – cameras, pictures, timelapse creation, sunset capture and live video capture…. and, optimized the results before uploading it all to the website… and, did it efficiently, predictably, and without errors.
AI-guided development has plusses and minuses; there have been days of fantastic output and days of sheer frustration. Claude, the AI tool we’re using, imposes usage limits and cuts us off at the most-inopportune moments (like now, so I get to catch up on notes). So it is with the Camera Controller. It’s close to finally being what we need, but it’s still a ways off. Till then, be patient. After the controller is finished, its counterpart on the web server will need a shakeout. Then? A few more things to handle:
- Timezone-related problems with plugins
- Wave height plugin consolidation
- Tempest plugin – limitations with historical data?
- Header/footer branding issues
So yeah! Plenty to do between now and Scootercam’s 10th Anniversary.
Rick Xaver
North American Communications Director
Scootercam Worldwide LLC