My daughter just started middle school and was introduced to Arduino. She has done some simple projects, "LED Blink" and "Photo resistor", etc... She wants to try something new and chose to set up an Arducam. We have an Arduino UNO R3 board with an Arducam OV2640 2MP camera.
All we want to do is set it up to take a picture using a button on a breadboard and store the image on the computer. Not sure if we have everything we need to be able to do that or not. I have scoured the internet trying to find a similar project that we can download and open in the Arduino App.
Can someone point us in the right direction on how to start this project. We, she and I, are new to Arduino and not familiar with all the in's and out's. We know the basic idea of creating a project. but the camera is a little more complicated.
The limitation here is that the Arduino, while a nice fast microcontroller, has very limited memory and speed compared to even an older PC.
Processing images is "not it's thing" as it can only be a fairly slow conduit between one data area and another with a negligible amount of intermediate buffering. Serial data from a camera could be progressively shifted through to a SD card, so now you have the image on the card, what do you want to do with it?
If you want to transfer the data to a computer, then it is nonsense. Just connect your webcam and it is done.
A bit off subject, but I got one of these kits and find it to be good with a nice text. The print is a bit small for my old eyes but the text is well written and more complete than some others I have seen. https://store.arduino.cc/usa/arduino-starter-kit
saildude:
A bit off subject, but I got one of these kits and find it to be good with a nice text. The print is a bit small for my old eyes but the text is well written and more complete than some others I have seen. https://store.arduino.cc/usa/arduino-starter-kit
Careful them kits get you hooked on Arduino.
That's how I started and there is no known cure.
Tutorial
This tutorial will demonstrate how to use the ArduCAM shield on Arduino UNO board, aim the point and press a snapshot button you will get a BMP picture saved on the SD/TF card.
Ask around about good SD modules for Arduino, they're cheap (under $5) and don't slow-cook the cards and themselves.
Look for DuPont Cables to get jumpers that slide onto pins (aka female) and note you can get the cables in male-male (jumpers with a pin on each end), female-female (jumpers with a sleeve on each end) and male-female. If you have an Uno you want pin ends to stick in the header holes while a Nano has only pins so you need sleeves and the SD modules usually have pins so yes pick jumpers to match your hardware.
DuPont Cables are 40-wire ribbon cables with separated ends. You can peel off as many wires as you need (provided you got em) for individual jumpers or your own "custom" cables that only split up at the ends.
Where to actually start with Arduino is to make a bookmark folder named Arduino and then bookmark the Arduino Main Site pages that document a whole manual's worth of material right down to the fundamentals.
Foundations to learn about (be aware of and how to get back to on need) early on;
Microcontrollers
Digital Pins: How the pins work and what it means for them to be configured as inputs or outputs.
Analog Input Pins: Details about the analog-to-digital conversion and other uses of the pins.
PWM: How the analogWrite() function simulates an analog output using pulse-width modulation.
Memory: The various types of memory available on the Arduino board.
Programming
Language Reference: Discover the what each term of the Arduino code language means.
Variables: Understand how to define and use variables in a Sketch.
Functions: Learn how to define and use functions in a Sketch.
Library: Using and installing Arduino Libraries.
Small projects that you know what every line does will teach far more than big projects that you guess what each line does.
Every time you see a command that you don't know well and isn't a sketch function... look it up! Just seeing the correct definition and usage will refresh your memory with correct knowledge, a Very Positive Reinforcement for your neural connections.
