I was given a “disposable” digital camera a while ago and thought I should take it apart. I checked the internet and I found a lot of people “hacking” the camera so it isn’t disposable anymore and making the camera work with a computer to retrieve the images taken. I started to look into hacking the camera and then the semester started and I ran out of time.

I recently went to the kite festival here in Austin and thought it would be cool to put a camera on a kite and send it up. I did some research and found people did this and even some with the same camera I wanted to hack for unlimited use!

In order to send my camera up and take pictures, I had to create a timing circuit and find a kite able to hold the weight. This past weekend I built the circuit on a breadboard but ran into some issues putting it on the perfboard. Note to self: never buy perfboard without metal contacts. I was also able to connect a USB connector to the camera so I can communicate with my PC and I attempted to get the drivers working but ran out of time.

My progress on the hacking has been slowed because of a busy schedule. During the break I will have to get this camera working!
I have several things to do:

*Find kite
*Finish hacking camera so it communicates with the computer
*Build the timer circuit on perfboard

I’ll continue to update as things move along. I’ve included links to a few resources I’ve been looking at to complete this project.

Ten Dollar Digital Camera (Portal for camera hacking)

CVS Red PV2 mods (Camera hack info)

Myodifying A Disposable Camera for KAP (Timer circuit)