Raspberry Pi + Instagram + the house from “Up” = Upstagram

Pixar's Up was and is one of the most touching animated stories to make its way to the big screen. And what better way to pay homage to the titular flying house than to make a tiny version, and send it into the air with a camera on board? That's what the team at Hackerloop did with their Upstagram project.

For this build, the team reconstructed the house from Up using paper and foam, and inside it managed to load up a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, a camera, a 3G key, and a battery. With more than 80 helium filled balloons, they sent the house 300 feet (around 90m) into the air above Paris. The team reverse engineered Instagram to figure out a way to upload images without needing a smartphone, so that the photos could automatically be uploaded.

To achieve that, we studied Instagram’s apps and extracted the technical information that we needed to send photos on the service from any device.

The best of the photos were saved, and uploaded to the Hackerloop Instagram account — with build photos going to Flickr.

It's a fantastic project, one that combines hardware and software engineering with a sense of playfulness and joy. And the photos aren't too bad, either.

(via TechCrunch)