This year at the Woodlands we are hatching our very own ducks and chickens in an incubator.

To make sure we catch the hatching action we have created a time-lapse camera system using a USB webcam attached to an inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer running Linux. The Raspberry Pi works 24 hours per day capturing four frames per minute which we can export as a time-lapse video.

In addition, the Pi allows us to stream a live view of the incubator directly into our classrooms, so our young people can see the hatchings live, as long as the eggs decide to hatch in school-time!

The video here is our first, prototype time-lapse and shows the very first hatching!

Watch this space…