Twentieth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This device was designed to assist teachers with their online classes. It was apparent that instructors were limited with the technology they had at the beginning of the pandemic. A steep shortage of adequately equipped classroom cameras was noticed in the markets and schools had to make decisions fast to go live online to commence the semester instruction. One of the major challenges that instructors faced was the quality of the webcam used. This device consists of a webcam base that allows the instructor to use a standard webcam and a regular tripod while benefitting from the nearness to the board and pivoting the webcam to utilize a wider area such that the instructor can use the entire board. The device consists of two servo motors that control the horizontal and vertical movement of the Webcam. A Radio Frequency (RF) receiver to communicate with the transmitter and a decoder chip are used to mirror the encoder chip that is placed in the controller side. The controller is composed of a 2-axes joystick, arduino mini, encoder chip, and a power supply. The encoder allows the signals from the joystick to be processed before they are sent over the RF transmitter. The main requirements for this device were to be compact, use minimal power, and to pivot the webcam in the horizontal and vertical axes. The prototype model was tested during Fall 2021 semester in the classroom and allowed the instructors to pivot the webcam remotely to utilize wider board space.