This Raspberry Pi Polaroid Camera Project Puts Snapchat to Shame

Taking pictures on the Raspberry Pi just got old school with maker Sam Zeloof's Polaroid Pi project! Using a receipt printer and Raspberry Pi housed inside an old Pronto Polaroid Land camera, he's able to print images on demand.

The project uses a Raspberry Pi with an Adafruit thermal printer. The printer can be used to print anything using a roll of thermal receipt paper. Zeloof rigged the printer to produce black and white images instead of the usual text.

The device will print the images almost as soon as they are taken. Full resolution copies of each image are stored internally on an SD card in full color. You can easily access and transfer them over Wi-Fi.

For a little bit of artistic flair, the images are processed to have a "washed-out film look" with the date appearing in the corner, thanks to a PIL script. This gives the final appearance of each image a very retro feel.

If you'd like to explore this project, check out the full thread shared by Zeloof on Twitter. He has plenty of pictures to show the progress and end result.