Programming Praxis

We have today our fourth essay: Building a Security Camera with a Raspberry Pi. An essay isn’t an exercise; it doesn’t present a task for you to perform, but instead provides extended discussion and complete source code. Though essays may be based on exercises, the idea is that an essay can delve more deeply into a topic than is possible in the limited space and time of an exercise.

My daughter recently had a thief enter her apartment and steal her laptop computer. Later, when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, her answer was immediate: a security camera, so in case she is robbed again she will have pictures of the thief to give to the police. But commercial security cameras are expensive, often several hundred dollars, and many are tied to security services with expensive monthly fees, which she wasn’t interested in paying. So I built a security camera using a Raspberry Pi, and wrote this essay describing how I did it.

Please read the essay, and feel free to comment on it below; comments on the essay itself are closed. Let me know if you see any errors. And feel free to link to the essay on the internet if you know of places where it is appropriate.