Raspberry Pi Brings Ghostly Betta Fish to Life
If you’ve ever ridden the Haunted Mansion ride at one of Disney’s theme parks, you’re bound to remember the ballroom full of dancing ghosts. They’re clearly animatronics but somehow the magic makes them appear and disappear like true phantoms. This magic is easy to replicate with a Raspberry Pi 4 with an effect known as Pepper’s Ghost and that’s exactly what maker N4MI0 has done with this beautiful betta fish bowl project.
The illusion requires a real-life object to be hidden out of view. When illuminated just right, it can be reflected on a sheet of glass or other transparent material giving it the appearance of existing in a new location. In this case, the betta fish is playing on a video from a screen. N4MI0 is reflecting the fish onto a sheet of plexiglass that was cut to fit neatly inside of the glass. When the fish swims by in the video, it appears to pop up inside of the bowl.
The video is played on a Raspberry Pi 4 which is outputting to a round screen from Waveshare. The screen is placed at the bottom of the bowl which is more of a closed glass globe. The plexiglass is 1mm thick and flexed slightly to fit inside. According to N4MI0, the effect works best when you’re looking at it from a particular perspective, so it doesn’t quite have a 3D hologram effect but works great if positioned just right.
Read More: Raspberry Pi Brings Ghostly Betta Fish to Life | Tom’s Hardware
