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| The Ingredients List |
The Ingredients:
- Shoebox
- Paperclip
- Smartphone
- Magnifying glass
- knife or similar
- Electrical or black duct tape
- Step 1: Trace a Hole on the Box
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| Trace a Hole on the Box |
If the inside walls of your box are a bright color, you may want to spray paint them black or tape up some black paper for best image quality.
Once your box is ready, trace the outer edge of your lens or magnifying glass onto one of the short sides of the box.
Step 2: Cut a Hole in That Box
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| Cut a Hole in That Box |
Cut out the inside of the circle you just traced.
You don’t want light leaking around your lens so try not to cut too much.
At the back of your box, cut a small hole for your phone’s power cord.
Step 3: Attach Your Lens
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| Attach Your Lens |
Now you’ve got a porthole cut in your shoebox its time to stick on that lens.
If your magnifying glass has a handle, you may want to remove it first.
Line up your lens with the hole and apply tape around the entire edge of your lens.
Make sure your lens is held securely and there are no holes between the tape for light to escape.
Step 4: Take a Stand
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| Take a Stand |
We used this very helpful tutorial to make a stand for our phone out of a paper clip.
Other stand ideas include this ultra-portable Tiltpod, this hand dandy Gorillapod, or this super creative lego stand from this cool tutorial.
Step 5: Flip Your Screen
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| Flip Your Screen |
When light passes though a lens (including the lenses in your eyes), it gets flipped, which means the picture from your projector will come out upsidown.
No fear though, we have a fix!
For the iPhone go to Settings > General > Accessibility and turn on AssistiveTouch.
Once activated, a little white orb will pop that you can drag around the screen.
Click on the orb and go to Device > Rotate Screen.
This will allow you to flip applications like the Photos app which would normally rotate itself right side up.
Andriod users can download the app Ultimate Rotation Control.
Or if all else fails you can just stand on your head.
Step 6: Finding Focus
If your walls are plastered with pics you will need to clear out a little space for your projection.
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| Finding Focus |
For a screen you could use a white bed sheet, turn a poster around, project onto a shower or window curtain, or just use the bare wall.
Without a focus ring on your magnifying glass you’re going to have to foot focus.
Position your phone in its stand near the back of the box and walk forwards or backwards until your image starts to come into focus.
Once you’ve found a good range you can fine tune focus by moving your phone forwards or backwards in the box.
If you used a camera lens for your projector, you get the bonus of a focus ring that gives you some extra flexibility in terms of screen size and focus distance.
Step 7: Don’t Fight the Light
It’s not the power of your projector. It’s how you use it!
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| Don’t Fight the Light |
For best viewing, turn the screen brightness of your phone all the way up and turn the room lights down.
Set your phone’s photo app to slide show mode for a hands free experience.
Your power cord can go through the hole you cut in the back of the box and a little tape will seal the deal.
Taking it Further
- Use your magnifying glass to get an up-close perspective on your phones pixels.
- Try using your computer screen instead of your phone as the display in a new projector project.
- Check out this crazy sophisticated DIY digital projectorthat can create a 120″ HD screen!
- This mini film projector fits in the palm of your hand and was made from an Altoids tin!
- Leave it to the Japanese to do something this awesomewith a projector. Hint: Samurai swords, shadow battles.
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