Here is a video that some 10 year olds made when I helped out in an ICT club. It was made with an old Intel Play Camera (Digital Blue) using a form of stop motion known as paper cutout. For more ideas on this kind of animation see my website.
If, like me, you have been waiting for something to replace your ageing copy of Digital Blue's rather horrible Movie Creator software, then look no further. ZU3D version 3 has arrived and after a couple of days of playing around with it I am smitten.
I've had the original version for a while and my 10 year old son has found it very easy to use. I was always impressed with the friendly interface and the simplicity, but for me there were a few things missing in the original version; I frequently found myself using other software in addition. But not any longer!
The developers have managed to maintain the simple interface but have added so many more features (live video, time lapse, chroma key, multiple time lines to name but a few). You can even draw animations or import animated gifs which makes creating your own special effects a real possibility.
An exploding meerkat courtesy of ZU3D
So, now you can do stop motion, live video, and 'movie maker style' editing all in one package just like you could (ish) with the Digital Blue software - except ZU3D does it all so much better.
Do your school or your home a favour and check out the website. I only have the software, but their animation kit including camera, software, sets, green screen and plasticine looks like a good deal to me.
This is a great little video project for kids using a crystal growing kit. The one we used was called Shangri-La and came from John Lewis a while ago, but there are plenty of similar kits around. As well as the kit, you will need a webcam, time lapse software and video editing software (we used free software).
Magic Garden - just one example of many crystal growing kits available
All you need to do is assemble the kit, setup your camera and software, pour on the special liquids and leave for about 10 hours.
Once the wait is over, import the photos into the video editing software, edit, save and play.
For this one, we used the Microsoft Lifecam Studio webcam, Yawcam software (free) and Windows Live Movie Maker. Instructions for using Yawcam can be found on my website here. Movie Maker is a free download for Windows 7 and is very simple to use. Earlier versions of Windows shipped with (imho) a better but more complicated version of Movie Maker. I will be adding more time lapse ideas to my website soon.
Sometime ago I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately this meant a lot of old stuff (software and hardware) no longer worked. This included my 'trusty' digital blue camera and an ancient Logitech webcam. I have, at last, got around to buying a new webcam - the Microsoft LifeCam Studio Full HD 1080p.
I was mostly looking for a camera that I could use for stop motion animation projects with the children. In particular it needed to be easily mounted face down, preferably on a tripod. This narrowed the choice down somewhat as I could only find two easily available webcams with tripod mountings - the Microsoft Lifecam and one made by Logitech.
First impressions? Very very impressed!
Good build quality. Good USB cable length. Decent stand for placing on a desktop to film an animation. Mounts well on a tripod and on the table-top mount I used for the digital blue. Great picture quality. Decent amount of control from the supplied software (focus, brightness, zoom, white balance etc.) which means minimal movement of the actual camera during filming. I am looking forward to getting stuck into some projects with the kids, but in the meantime here is a quick lightbox animation test with the Lifecam and ZU3D software:
I need to work on the flickering (think that is the auto white balance or auto focus) but otherwise very happy.
I have also discovered an added bonus with this camera. It fits perfectly on to my Natural History Museum Microscope. If you are not familiar with this excellent (and cheap) piece of kit then I urge you to take a look at the reviews (I was the first Amazon reviewer, back in August 2008 and there are a number of my photos in the customer images). I had previously tried some video with it, by taping my old webcam to the top with ok results. But the lifecam could have been made for this microscope. It sits (and balances) perfectly on top and once positioned can be controlled entirely from the PC. On discovering this, I rushed out into the garden to grab some unsuspecting minibeast to stick under the lens - a young (and transparent) earthworm was my victim:
Not the most exciting of creatures but you get the idea of the possibilities for this combination. Btw, the circular viewing area was only about 7mm in diameter - this worm was tiny.
A couple of snapshots of the Lifecam Studio software showing the extent of the control you have:
Not the cheapest of webcams, but currently on sale at under £50 on amazon. I thoroughly recommend it.
Welcome to the new Kershaw Kids blog, a place where I will occasionally inform my visitors of any updates to the Kershaw Kids website.
'The Playroom' has had a bit of a facelift. As most people have broadband these days it seemed unnecessary to provide the 'toys' to amuse your toddler whilst the real activities loaded. So, they've gone and the playroom has been given a lick of paint. Don't worry, all your favourite activities are still there and a few things have been fixed.
I'm playing around with Android at the moment. It's been a slow start as there have been a lot of new things to learn - Eclipse, Java, Android SDK. I am hoping to port some of my activities onto the Android platform at some stage, but for now I've created a brand new Times Tables app based on one of the methods I used to teach my own children their tables. It can be found in the Android Market Place and is called 'Times Tables Xpress':
