Snap Pictures with This Raspberry Pi-Enabled Etch A Sketch

While this isn’t the first time someone’s has automated the Etch A Sketch drawing process, this is “(probably) the world’s first Etch A Sketch Camera.”

Martin Fitzpatrick’s Etch-A-Snap uses a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a Pi Camera to take an image, and process it into a 100x60 1-bit black and white image. The Pi then controls a pair of 5V stepper motors in a custom 3D-printed frame.

The project is fully portable, powered by four AA batteries to provide juice to the stepper motors, and three 18650 cells for the Raspberry Pi. The drawing procedure starts off with a red LED showing to indicate that it needs to be turned over and shaken for a clean slate. When in place, a green light denotes that it’s ready to take a picture. The shutter can then be pressed to capture the surroundings, and the image is slowly developed by progressively turning the Etch A Sketch’s knobs for 15 minutes to an hour depending on the image’s details.

Code for the Etch-A-Snap is available on GitHub if you’d like to try to replicate this device yourself, and a demo of the in action is seen in the video above. This sketch is based on this snapshot of a Doraemon model along with a deer figurine.