{"id":33148,"date":"2021-05-20T16:26:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T21:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33148"},"modified":"2021-05-29T20:19:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-30T01:19:28","slug":"legoing-up-a-webcam-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=33148","title":{"rendered":"LEGOing Up a Webcam Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The
The LEGO webcam tower beneath my monitor at Diamond<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A few months ago at work, I built a LEGO stand for my webcam<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d bought the camera at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. It was supposed to clip onto the monitor, but I have a curved superwide monitor at the office and the clip, while well-intentioned, wouldn’t attach to that. I had to come up with something else. So I built a little tower that sat under the monitor to which I could clip the webcam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It worked… and it didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, the camera worked just fine. However, the camera also ended up being too close. I couldn’t adjust its zoom, and if I sat at my desk I’d show up as a shoulder. Sometimes I’d sit at the end of my desk. Sometimes I’d disconnect the camera (but not the microphone) entirely. It was annoying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But! I’m also clever, and solutions can be found!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or built!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camera needed to be further back. I could<\/em> built a giant LEGO tower that would stand on my desk behind the monitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I looked at the monitor pedestal, and I had<\/em> a much better idea…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could build a socket that would fit onto the top of the pedestal, and the LEGO tower could go on top of that. Since the tower I’d built in January<\/a> worked, save for the problem of being too close to be useful, I really only had to build a base to which I could attach that tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, this would be more stable than a freestanding structure on the desk, because it would be physically attached to something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, this would take considerably fewer bricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s a reason<\/em> I keep a contained of LEGO bricks at the office — you never know when you’ll have an urgent need to build something. So, one afternoon when I was in the office to create the month’s order forms, I took a baseplate from Dollar Tree, held it against the top of the pedestal, and attached 2×4 bricks to the underside the plate to create an “outline” of the pedestal’s tip. Then I built out that “outline” into something sturdier. One layer of bricks seemed “loose” on the pedestal; adding a second layer made it much sturdier and solid. Also, because the pedestal had a slight lean, I wanted to made the socket thicker on what would be the back end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At home that night, I took another baseplate and built a sturdy base that I could put my previous LEGO tower atop. I didn’t know how tall I needed it to be, so I built until I felt like I was done, using a combination of bricks and flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day, after processing the UK order form files and sending them to Graphics, I assembled my various pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I discovered the base I’d built the night before wasn’t tall enough, but rather than make it taller I decided to be efficient instead. I built some foundational pillars, put those atop the baseplate atop the socket, then attached a baseplate to the pillars. Then the base I’d built the night before went on top of that, and the webcam tower went on top of the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was still concerned about the lean, but I had an idea!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I separated the tower about midway up, and built a kind of gangplank that would reach over the monitor and have a “hook.” If it starts to slide — and I feel confident it won’t — the hook will catch on the edge of the monitor, arresting the slide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My
The LEGO Webcam Tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

No, it’s not the most elegant solution in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, however, my<\/em> solution to a vexing problem. That makes it just right. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, that’s a photograph of Washington’s Trinity Episcopal Church<\/a>, designed by James Renwick and torn down almost a century ago, on the wall of my office. I like the photograph of the unfinished Capitol during the Civil War a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Not
The webcam, peering over my monitor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It works. I tested it with Windows 10’s camera application, and I can sit at my desk and use Teams or Zoom and be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the camera over the monitor like that — and the “hook” hanging over the edge — will take some getting used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may not be a lidless eye, wreathed in flame, but it does see all, so I’ve been keeping it unplugged from my USB hub unless I need it hooked up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, that’s a photograph of the 1943 Homestead Grays at Forbes Field hanging on the wall. Josh Gibson is third from left in the back row. I like old baseball photographs. I have a number of old photos on my wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My desktop wallpaper is from Edward Sachse’s 1852 bird’s eye view of Washington<\/a>. I needed something that would work on a super-wide monitor, and I liked the artwork so it was an easy choice. I wrote about some of the things you can find in this image here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people have massive collections of Funko POP! figures in their offices at Diamond. I have old photographs, art, and strange LEGO constructs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s not a thing wrong with that. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago at work, I built a LEGO stand for my webcam. I’d bought the camera at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. It was supposed to clip onto the monitor, but I have a curved superwide monitor at the office and the clip, while well-intentioned, wouldn’t attach to that. I had to come up withContinue reading “LEGOing Up a Webcam Tower”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[4846,4999,4110,4814,4815,4103,4049,4124],"class_list":["post-33148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legos","tag-diamond-comic-distributors","tag-dollar-tree","tag-history","tag-homestead-grays","tag-josh-gibson","tag-lego","tag-washington-dc","tag-work","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}