It sounds like Harry Potter magic, but it's not. Industrious DIYer Abhishek Singh recently took to Reddit to show off his own version of an instant camera, one that 'prints' animated GIFs instead of photos.

Singh built the Instagif Camera himself and based it on the Polaroid OneStep SX-70 camera, though it uses a special hardware cartridge rather than a packet of film.

Singh detailed the entire build process in an album on Imgur, explaining that it features a Raspberry Pi 3 (camera) and Raspberry Pi Zero W (cartridge), PiTFT display, PowerBoost 1000C charger, momentary switch, and LiPo battery. . . among other things. After designing a 3D model of the camera, the individual components were 3D printed with a Project 7000 SLA printer, painted, and assembled.

The GIF, as demonstrated in the video above, fades into view in a way similar to a Polaroid photo, and the cartridge connects to the camera itself directly, no external WiFi network necessary. Singh has provided the software, a parts list, and instructions for anyone to download and build their own Instagif Camera. All the links are available in the Imgur album and the code is available in GitHub.

2017-9-1 21:40