Raspberry Pi Photo Booth

Building a Raspberry Pi Powered Photo Booth

As part of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ product launch at work, all the business units had small internal launch events with cake, etc. I thought it would be neat to build a photo booth using a Pi and set it up as part of the event.

There are many tutorials out there, for which I’m thankful, as this idea came about the day before our internal launch event! Huge thanks to Jack Barker for doing all the heavy lifting in Python. In fact, because he did such a good job, I’m not going to focus on the code portion of the build – rather just the physical build.

BOM:

Supplies:

  • Hot glue gun
  • Printer to print graphics
  • Spray adhesive to apply printed graphics
  • Xacto knife
  • Ruler

While installing and testing the code from Jack Barker while the Pi was on my bench, I did a rough design of what I wanted the enclosure to look like. In Jack’s project, there are images that can be replaced which display on the touchscreen and sort of guide the user through the process. I redesigned these to match the outside look of the box.

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Illustration

Next, I mapped out the box on a large piece of cardboard to match the dimensions from the illustration. I targeted 3″ deep x 15″ wide x 7.5″ tall. This gave plenty of room inside for the touchscreen, Pi, camera, as well as a USB power bank to power the unit. You can download a PDF template here.

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Box

At this point, I covered the cardboard with my printed graphics and cut all necessary holes.

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Box with Holes

…and then mounted the touchscreen (if you need help hooking the touchscreen up to the Pi, see this tutorial, and this tutorial to get the camera up and running). It was necessary to add some layers of cardboard to the inside of the box to ensure the screen would mount tightly against the outside. I used a few scraps of acrylic to sandwich the screen to the box. I also hot glued the camera in place and installed the button.

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Components

The last thing I did was to reinforce the bottom of the box with more acrylic, drilled a hole and mounted a 1/4 20 nut to accept a tripod bolt for mounting on a tripod (I actually used a GoPro tripod mount, as it was laying around).

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Mounting

Before assembling the box, I recommend testing your code to ensure everything is working properly. Things get too tight for hands once the box is assembled. If everything is good to go, slap some hot glue on the glue tab and assemble the box.

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth Rear

It went over well at the event, and I think everyone got a chance to try it.

 

Raspberry Pi Photo Booth In Action

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