When you hear of a new digital camera that they've brought out just for kids, you probably think of one of those colorful plastic cameras from the major toymakers that go for $50 or so. While those are certainly digital cameras kids will love, someone's thought of an interesting twist on the concept of the kind of digital cameras kids might really be interested in. The camera is called the BigShot; and it is a teaching camera. As for me, I'm really intrigued by how it is that American marketing experts come up with these really great names that make a play on phrases and expressions we know.
The BigShots is an ingenious digital camera kit. The kit comes with all the requisite parts that go into a digital camera, and then some. The BigShot is actually a self-powered camera - meaning that it doesn't use ordinary batteries. It comes with a hand crank attached to a tiny little dynamo inside the body of the camera. An internal battery is charged when you turn the crank for a few minutes. While even your general issue children's camera is likely to help your child's imagination in wonderful ways, just think of the possibilities that a self-built camera could have, sending your child's imagination soaring. It's a wonderful way that your child could learn a lot about mechanical energy, optics and just plain old manual dexterity. This could be the next thing in digital cameras kids everywhere ask for. It's the chemistry set or the Meccano set of today.
And if the whole exercise in assembling the camera has your child intrigued, the creator of the camera Shree Nayar, an immigrant from India, has an informative website that will help explain all the concepts involved in detail in a way a child would understand. The camera itself just costs about $100; the project is subsidized by Google to help keep the price down. So what kind of pictures does BigShot take? Actually, the pictures are better than any other children's camera I've ever seen.
The lens system used in camera is quite ingenious; they don't give you two lenses one in front of the other, moved back and forth by a motor. Instead, they just place all the lenses they need on a circular plastic front on the body; whatever focal length you need, you just roll the right lens in front of the aperture, and there you go. I've never seen a child receive the BigShot kit and ignore it successfully for longer than a second. The feeling that you can actually put together something valuable with your own two hands, is an experience your child is likely never going to forget, and it will be something that will expand her feelings of self-worth. To think that digital cameras kids get could actually help with their self-esteem - it's an awesome concept.
How did the inventor ever come up with the idea for this? It came, reportedly, from a documentary on the children of India's prostitution racket. The director gave child workers of India's prostitution areas cameras of their own so that they could shoot footage that they felt were important as a way to represent how they lived. If that isn't a powerful way in which to come upon an idea, what could be?
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