ScrapRovers on Bytes by Boon projects

Milestone: Camera Setup

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:10:45 +0200

So here’s a little update on the camera setup. I have been able to get the camera working and streaming video to my laptop. This is done using a Raspberry Pi on my local network. The camera is not yet connected to the Raspberry Pi directly but that is the next step. The project turned a little into something else. I had to buy Raspberry Pi because my old one seem to be malfunctioning. I can scrap the Scrap in the Scrap Rover project name if you will. But that’s fine ‘cause I can use the PI all sorts of other projects as well.

Configuring the Raspberry PI

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Upgrade

I tested my old Raspberry PI 3 model B+ and didn’t start anymore. So I made the upgrade to the Raspberry PI model 5. Making use of PI imager software it was pretty easy to provide an image to start from. It’s was always extra steps to configure an internet connection and enable SSH but with the imager software you can configure that during installation there.

Use a controller for the controls?

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How would the controlls look like

I was thinking, maybe it would be interesting to move the Scrap Rover with a controller? This way the camera can be controlled with one joystick and the Rover itself with another.

Beside that if you’re connected with a phone maybe also have an option to control it with buttons in the UI.

Resources

Gamepad API - javascript

Discovering Media MTX and FFMPEG

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:57:45 +0200

Installing Media MTX

To start out my journey on discovering how Media MTX works, I installed the binary on my Windows laptop.

It came as .zip file so after extracting this file I was presented with a .exe file.

Executing this binary resulted in a warning which I ignored and let it run anyway.

After this a new console window opened which gave the following logs:


2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF MediaMTX v1.17.0, windows, amd64
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF configuration loaded from C:\\\\Projecten\\\\Tools\\\\mediamtx\\\_v1.17.0\\\_windows\\\_amd64\\\\mediamtx.yml
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF \\\[RTSP] listener opened on :8554 (TCP/RTSP), :8000 (UDP/RTP), :8001 (UDP/RTCP)
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF \\\[RTMP] listener opened on :1935
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF \\\[HLS] listener opened on :8888
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF \\\[WebRTC] listener opened on :8889 (HTTP), :8189 (ICE/UDP)
2026/03/30 16:27:40 INF \\\[SRT] listener opened on :8890 (UDP)

My realization came that this will start some sort of server which can serve request. I haven’t however found a way to configure the source of the video that should be streamed.

Controls architecture research

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 23:04:45 +0200

Overview

The Scrap Rover is a remotely controlled vehicle built from scrap parts: a Raspberry Pi, an IP camera, and wheels. The controller interface is a webpage served by the Pi itself, accessible via Wi-Fi.

UI Layout

The webpage consists of two sections:

Video stream — embedded as an HTML element at the top
Control buttons — directional buttons below the stream

┌─────────────────────┐
│ │
│ video stream │
│ │
├─────────────────────┤
│ [▲] │
│ [◄] [▼] [►] │
└─────────────────────┘

PC users can additionally use arrow keys for input.

Making the plan

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:54:45 +0200

Introduction

Today I decided to start a new project that involves a Raspberry PI an IP camera and some wheels I once got as a gift. The idea is building a vehicle that can move forward, backward and can make turns. As easy as this sounds this should be possble remotely.

The IP camera will send a live feed to whatever device is used to watch the stream the camera is sending. We had a security camera laying around that was never installed properly so to make use of it now seems appropriate for a project called Scrap Rover. chuckle

Streaming the IP camera with WebRTC

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Now that the IP camera is confirmed working over RTSP, the next challenge is getting that stream into a browser without plugins or heavy client software. The solution: convert the RTSP stream to WebRTC and serve it directly from the Pi’s own webpage.

The full pipeline looks like this:

IP Camera (RTSP) → MediaMTX → WebRTC → Browser

WebRTC is natively supported in all modern browsers and brings latency down to under 200ms — a significant improvement over the ~500ms delay observed in VLC.