Daren Matthews

This project achieves many objectives. It gives me a chance to learn how to use Python to control external devices (in this case a very cheap motion detecting sensor) and it also makes my girlfriend happy. Even though she does (rightly as there is a time and a place..!) complain about my “enthusiasm” for getting a pin to connect to a software interrupt. Anyway. Here it is:

Capturing the antics of Fudgie the Hamster!

Detects motion using a PIR Motion Detection GPIO sensing kit to leverage the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi, then takes photos using the Raspberry Pi Camera Module and updates Twitter with a random rant from Fudgie himself.

You will need to install “python-picamera”, which is a pure Python interface to the Raspberry Pi camera module for Python 2.7 (or above) or Python 3.2 (or above). The python-picamera library is available in the Raspbian archives. Install with apt:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-picamera

Alternatively, the Python3 package is installed with sudo apt-get install python3-picamera. An offline version of the documentation is available with

sudo apt-get install python-picamera-docs.

Note: Fudge Cam will soon be expanded to record video using Python. This can be displayed on a webpage:

camera.start_recording('video.h264')
sleep(5)
camera.stop_recording()

Meanwhile here is the current code:

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import random, time, os
import tweepy
import picamera

pir = 17
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(pir, GPIO.IN)

### TWITTER SETTINGS ###
# Set access keys via https://apps.twitter.com
api_key = 'your_api_key_number'
api_secret = 'your_api_secret_number'
access_token = 'your_access_token_number'
token_secret = 'your_token_secret_number'
auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(api_key, api_secret)
auth.set_access_token(access_token, token_secret)
api = tweepy.API(auth)
my_twitter = api.me()
print my_twitter.name, "is connected! Press CTRL + C to quit."
# Three statuses. We'll pick one at random to go with our pic
tweet_text = ['Aargh! I cannot sleep because I am nocturnal!',
'This'll teach her! I wanted Sunflower seeds for dinner!!',
'Let's party! I am drunk on fermented apples!']

### CAMERA SETTINGS ###
camera = PiCamera()
cam_res = (1024, 768)
camera.led = False # Turn off LED so we don't scare Fudge!
pics_taken = 0
time.sleep(1)

### MAIN FUNCTIONS ###
def motion_sense(pir):
print "Fudge action! Motion detected... Taking picture!"
take_picture(cam_res)

def take_picture(resolution):
  global pics_taken
    camera.resolution = resolution
    # Capture a sequence of frames
    camera.capture(os.path.join(
      'pics', 'image_' + str(pics_taken) + '.jpg'))
    pics_taken += 1
    print "Gotcha! Picture taken! Tweeting it now..."""
    update_twitter()
def update_twitter():
  api.update_with_media(os.path.join(
    'pics', 'image_' + str(pics_taken -1) + '.jpg'),
    status = random.choice(tweet_text))
  print "Status updated!"
  #We don't want to tweet more than once per minute!
  time.sleep(60)

### MAIN PROGRAM LOOP ###
try:
  GPIO.add_event_detect(pir, GPIO.RISING, callback=motion_sense)
  while True:
    time.sleep(60)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
  print "\nQuitting"
finally:
  camera.close()
  GPIO.cleanup()

The stuff you need to do this is obtained from Amazon: