CSMonitor's Jina Moore writes about BigShot: Snap-together camera introduces kids to tech, and to their world, a project by Shree Nayar, chairman of Columbia’s computer-science department and director of the Computer Vision Laboratory..."BigShot is about: Here’s a camera, let’s build it and learn. Let’s go becomeVery cool! And a generalizably interesting idea.photographers. Let’s learn about other cultures and communities" [...] Nayar conceived of BigShot four years ago as an educational trick of sorts. Painted in colors inspired by a bag of M&Ms, and large enough for kids to hold comfortably, BigShot is a build-it-yourself camera. It comes in a kit with less than 20 parts that snap and screw together simply. When it’s finished, users can peer through the transparent back and, with the help of labels preprinted on the plastic, show curious friends how the camera works. The labels point out the microprocessor, the memory chip, and other features that let this homemade device digitally capture, store, and reproduce images. BigShot takes normal, panoramic, and even three-dimensional pictures -- which, yes, require kids to don those blue- and red-lens glasses -- but the real point of the camera isn’t the photos. "It’s to use the camera as an excuse to expose [the kids] to as many science and engineering concepts as possible"
No comments:
Post a Comment