Camera Stand

Anyone who has seen any of my videos may have noticed that the camera was a "little" bit shaky. So far I've either been asking someone to hold the camera for me or I've been doing the video one-handed, camera in the other. The problem is once I start recording I focus less on the camera and more on what I'm actually doing and the camera goes haywire from thereon. 

Also those of you who know me know that when I get bored I like to play with Lego and build crazy things which I'll promptly dismantle to start on my next build. Today I decided to build something a little more permanent that would rid me of shaky shooting for the rest of my life....or until I realize I should just go out and buy a tripod. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty hard to build especially since I didn't want to damage the camera  yet still wanted the stand to bend like a yoga master. After 3 hours, 5 design changes and one heated argument with my sister over whether I had finally lost my marbles (she's now decided to call me "different" - I'll take that as a win) I managed to complete a fully functional camera stand.

The stand consists of 3 parts, a camera holder which holds the camera snugly and rotates 360 degrees, a stand for raising the holder and a base which also turns a full 360 degrees. I had originally wanted to make the height of the stand adjustable but I ran out of pieces along the way so I can only raise or lower it a couple of centimeters. To give myself full control over tilt of the camera I added a small gear to the tilt mechanism which slows down the speed at which the holder pivots allowing for far greater control (the gear also prevents the weight of the camera from tipping the holder sideways). Since the tripod mount isn't going to be used I even added a small axle to hold the camera in spot.

When I finallllllly thought I was done I realized I had 2 problems. The first was relatively minor - I couldn't charge the camera in the stand, which I rectified by adding a door to allow me to remove the camera with ease. The second - that I couldn't hit ANY of the buttons - was slightly more severe. I ended up adding axles which can be pressed and in turn press the buttons and added little knobs at the end to make it looks better. The best part was after making these minor adjustments I can actually remove the camera holder leaving the rest of the stand in case I want to use a different camera - which I'll have to build a separate holder for - which is not happening!

AND I WAS DONE. I now have a camera stand that rotates 360 degrees vertically and horizontally and should (hopefully) rid me of unsteady camera shooting for the rest of my YouTube career.