Challenge for the smart guys!

[Norman Adlam]

Right, here's a good technical challenge for you all, out there.

We fly at a local cricket (hey, we are in the UK! :D ) club ground - obviously when they aren't playing / practising.

The problem is that they never appear to stick to their published schedule, and we are getting fed up with turning up and desperately hoping for the 'urchins' to finish and go home to do their homework! :o

What we could do with is a camera to see if they are playing... BUT...

o The grounds are about 4 miles away
o We don't have access to any facilities (power etc).
o We need to be able to call it up when the weather seems good enough to fly.

The thought I was begining to have was a mobile phone, in an enclosure, using the camera 'bit', on standby, that you dialled up and looked at the scene to see if anyone is there.

(That way, all we'd pay for is a call charge when we needed to, using pay-and-go! :) )

It does mean we'd have to :-

o Power the 'phone on standby for a long time.
o Have the phone auto answer a call.
o Automatically switch to using the camera mode, and send us an image.

So, thoughts anybody? Is the idea viable?
Any ideas on how to interface to a mobile phone, to do what we want?

Any better way to do this?

I await with interest! :D

Cheers,

[BushmanLA]

Very doable, the only thing is you need to make the right hardware choices to make the job easy and cheap.

You can buy cell phone innards from www.sparkfun.com and other places I'm sure. Or you could go with a normal cheapo cell phone. If you look around you can find phones that are fairly easy to find java software development kits for etc.

A small solar panel should be enough to keep it charged.

I'd imagine the easiest thing to do is set up the cell phone to respond to a certain text message by taking a pic and emailing it to you.

The last hurdle would be to make sure no one steals the thing.

[Norman Adlam]

Very doable, the only thing is you need to make the right hardware choices to make the job easy and cheap.

You can buy cell phone innards from www.sparkfun.com and other places I'm sure. Or you could go with a normal cheapo cell phone. If you look around you can find phones that are fairly easy to find java software development kits for etc.

A small solar panel should be enough to keep it charged.

I'd imagine the easiest thing to do is set up the cell phone to respond to a certain text message by taking a pic and emailing it to you.

The last hurdle would be to make sure no one steals the thing.

Hmmm... dunno if anything from Sparkfun would be usable... it'd have to be usable on a UK network (Hmmm... guess as long as it uses the right frequency then it ought to work.. :rolleyes: )

Can you program a mobile 'phone to do what you suggest? (I'm an oldie that doesn't bother with all the nancy, fancy mobile phone facilities.. :o ) It'd need to wake up from standby, to auto answer the call, respond with a pic..??

Solar cell is possible - but even a largish external Li-Po would last for ages.. it might mean we'd have to swap over the battery every now and then..

Yeah.. we might be able to fix it on the Cricket Paviliion roof - which should reduce the chance of people stealing it.

Good comments, anyway! :)

Cheers,

[dcb]

put the camera on a long range foamie and figure out how to control it from 4 miles away :)

[Norman Adlam]

put the camera on a long range foamie and figure out how to control it from 4 miles away :)

Lean forward, DCB! Time to give you a slap! :D

Cheers,

[hargard]

Hi
I seem to remember there was something like this some while ago.
A search on this Forum using "Discussion - Cell phone/wind speed hack "
Brings up a load of info.
or maybe
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/2074/3098/view.phtml
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/557/1581/view.phtml
The one below is just the job..cheap and doable.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-remote-controlled-camera-from-a-cellphone!_1/
Cut and paste I’m afraid.
Regards Hargard

[Norman Adlam]

Hi
I seem to remember there was something like this some while ago.
A search on this Forum using "Discussion - Cell phone/wind speed hack "
Brings up a load of info.
or maybe
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/2074/3098/view.phtml
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/557/1581/view.phtml
The one below is just the job..cheap and doable.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-remote-controlled-camera-from-a-cellphone!_1/
Cut and paste I’m afraid.
Regards Hargard

Thanks,

I'd found the instructables info - and am looking at what might be necessary to remove such things as the relays! Looks promising.

The commercial units are around £100 - £300... and I'm more interested in spending about a tenner! :D

Am reading the forum links (many thanks), may have to PM the guys to see if they have got further. Not worried about the weather stuff, just about can I see people playing cricket.

Cheers,

[BushmanLA]

You could make friends with someone who lives near the field and give them a call before you go out there. :cool:

[Norman Adlam]

You could make friends with someone who lives near the field and give them a call before you go out there. :cool:

Only people nearby is a farmhouse... and the farmer himself died recently :( , so I don't think it'd be very fair to call up the farmers wife regularly (quite often in the evening).

Also, hacking some gadget or other is fun! :D

Cheers,

[gulio]

It seems to me that if they can coordinate a whole team of cricket to meet at a certain time then they have to put that together in advance and publish it somewhere.

School.website.e-mail?

Maybe you can get into that loop somehow? (somehow they all must know when to meet) even if it's not sticking to the published scedule.

[Norman Adlam]

It seems to me that if they can coordinate a whole team of cricket to meet at a certain time then they have to put that together in advance and publish it somewhere.

School.website.e-mail?

Maybe you can get into that loop somehow? (somehow they all must know when to meet) even if it's not sticking to the published scedule.
You'd think that would be possible, wouldn't you?

It's not a club run by a school, it's a proper recognised 350year old cricket club, who are also bringing youngsters into the game.

They have actual League games scheduled, and would talk between the clubs if anything had to change. They have friendly games, and again would communicate between the club organisers if things change.

Then it gets tricky!

Then have training and also games for youngsters (Colts).
They have training and games for slightly older players.
They have training and games for the more senior players.

Each group is organised by 1 or 2 separate people, and all the schedule says is that they should arrange it between themselves to agree when to play (depending, I guess, on availability, weather etc etc).

It would require all of them to bother to contact one of us, and as their interest and concentration is on the cricket, then they are not interested on what happens when they aren't there!

So, I'm afraid it's a massive thing to try to organise, with people who are disinterested in people flying Model aircraft.

Cheers,

[Brandano]

You could build them a message board and make it so useful to coordinate games that they'll use it more or at least as often as the usual phone call rounds. If you manage it then it's just a question of checking posted games on the bulletin board, or joining their mailing list and checking that

[Julez]

Does it have to be visual information?

With a highly sensitive microphone (http://www.radioworld.co.uk/~radio/catalog/mfj389-super-cyberear-amplifier-p-4870.html) pointed to the field, it should be audible if something is going on or not.