If you saw The Martian, you couldn’t miss the GoPro cameras strategically placed where Mark Watney (Matt Damon) hast to talk to other humans who were mostly absent.

It’s not exactly a webcam, but a powerful tool to ‘journal’ an activity a whether it is extreme sport, or something technical. I’ve started off using a GoPro in robotics, and it was quite revealing how the camera sees a manoeuvre.  I am now considering a class about the camera itself.

For this there will be two three cameras at work, in fact. The first, will be a webcam because of the expert I am going to bring in, via Skype. He will demo a GoPro and ‘teach’ us how to turn a GoPro into a scientific inquiry tool.WE will be using one in class as well.

The GoPro on Mars didn’t seem contrived – or a blatant product placement —  since some have actually been used in Space before. In real space, that is, and not on a movie set. And it has also gone to on some breathtaking missions — in a balloon, for instance.

Here’s one of my favorites. What a great way to demonstrate the surface tension of water, by making the camera a part of the experiment, while acting as a journaling device!

The GoPro is obviously switched on, and what’s really smart is how the editor of this video reverses the perspective. We finally see the scientists (the astronauts) through the scientific object (a submerged camera), and the water bubble acts as another distortion lens!