A Digital Camera From a Kit
A cross-section of the Bigshot camera.
Learning toys often start as a collection of parts, which after the assembly â€" and presumably the learning â€" collect dust on a shelf (Visible Man model, anyone?)
But the Bigshot camera is an educational kit that, once built, is a usable digital camera with its own battery charging crank, 3-D lens and wide-angle and regular lenses, and online lessons about optics, electronics and imaging.
The camera says it is intended for children 8 and up, although it takes a lot of patience and careful attention to instructions to build the camera. It took me about an hour to complete the project.
The most challenging part was locking down various parts with the small screws that are included. It takes a fair amount of torque to tighten them properly â€" maybe more than an 8-year-old can muster â€" and it requires a deft touch not to strip the plastic sleeves the screws fit in. I had to use my own jeweler’s screwdriver, rather than the screwdriver provided.
As you might expect from a $90 camera you build yourself, the quality of the optics isn’t outstanding. Photos aren’t terribly sharp and the shutter is slow. That doesn’t mean you can’t take good pictures (just ask any photographer involved in the creative Lomography field, which relies on a toy camera).
The Bigshot falls short in two respects. One is the crude software used to import photos. It looks as if it belongs to a decade-old PC. The other is the explanation of the science behind the camera. Much of it is needlessly complex. An 8-year-old may be able to build the camera, but I defy one to understand what this explanation from the Web site means: “The freed electrons are collected in a bucket-like region known as the potential well.â€
