Picza

Product Design and Development - MIT 2.739

The Picza is a robotic dolly that provides amateur filmmakers the ability to shoot professional-level tracking, trucking, and arc shots.

Design question: How can we enable amateur filmmakers to achieve these shots without relying on a cameraman and expensive equipment?

We narrowed in on our beachhead market as Micro-creators on Youtube with 1,000 to 250,000 followers

And our Secondary market as Professional Video Equipment Rental Facilities

Through our research, we identifiyed that the majority of amateur creators lack access to a professional camera crew and typically rely on a stationary tripod to record all of their content. This restriction limits many cretors to develop content within the confine view of a fixed camera angle.

To make Picza an effective product, we focused on creating a platform that minimizes user input on the front end while relying on a robust backend architecture.

Our prototype uses an Arduino microcontroller to interface with two drive motors through a separate controller. A PID controller was designed and fine-tuned to execute specific motion profiles with precision. By implementing mathematical models for various geometric shapes, we enabled the prototype to perform a range of motion profiles. Additionally, we integrated Bluetooth-based communication with a smartphone, enabling both real-time remote control and the ability to assign preprogrammed motion profiles.

We purchased an off the shelf tripod dolly, dissasembled its components, and modernized the design by adding a microcontroller and motors which lead to our finalized protoype.