Panoramic ball camera; toss to snap a picture

What an awesome hack. The 3D printing connection, the totally original idea, interesting use of embedded accelerometer... really, this is the kind of thing where I go, 'wow, why didn't I think of that'. Super stuff, and inspiring too.

I'd be a little wary of throwing it up high on the edge of that canyon!

Some years ago I made a 'poor mans' version of this using 6 webcams connected to a laptop via USB mounted to the roof of my car, it was a fun little project but the speed of the car combined with the delay caused by the various connections caused images that were less than impressive (lots of stitching errors).

This was before google streetview launched and when I saw their gear I realized I'd been going about it on a much too cheap path. The idea was to allow you to set up a road trip and to visualize the whole thing as the driver so you could get a feel of the trip from home, or to allow you to travel in a completely virtual way.