Control webcams over the Internet with Arduino

By using some Meccano, an Internet-connected Arduino board and a variety of electronics, you can create your own web-controlled webcam that can be rotated over the web, or also locally using a thumb joystick. The purpose for doing so is to allow the distant party on a Skype conversation to view around the local room whilst on the conversation.

It's simple to make and quite useful for regular webcam use.. To get started, visit the project page for notes and the code here. And for more news, updates and items of interest.please follow us on twitter, Facebook and Google+.

At Little Bird Electronics we have the thumb joysticks, matching breakout boards and a great Internet-enabled board - the Freetronics EtherTen. Apart from being fully Arduino Uno-compatible, it has onboard Ethernet, microSD socket and supports optional Power-over-Ethernet: