Lego Technic iPhone Tripod

The Motivation

I downloaded the LEGO Movie Maker app for my iPhone a few days ago so my daughter could try her hand at making stop motion videos.  It is really easy to use, it only took a few minutes and my 6-year old was reenacting Luke rescuing Leia from the Death Star.  My daughter couldn't hold the phone in the same spot though so the movie ended up being a mix of Star Wars and The Blair Witch Project.  I didn't get green watching it but that is only because it was about 4 seconds long.  It was still really cool to see her make a movie on her own though :)

The Tripod

Anyway, we didn't have a tripod for an iPhone so I started building one out of technic parts.  The only parts I used that were not from my Mindstorms kit were the three technic turntables.  These cost about $1.50 each on ebay so the entire thing is probably $7 or $8 in parts.

There are two turntables on the sides so that you can tilt the phone forwards and backwards.  There is another turntable underneath that lets the phone twist left and right.

And yes I know that this isn't technically a tripod but I figure "iphone tripod" is probably googled about a billion times more often than "iphone bipod" :)

Parts List

Parts Spreadsheet.

QTY: 1

QTY: 8

QTY: 2

QTY: 4

QTY: 2

QTY: 4

QTY: 4

QTY: 46

QTY: 2

QTY: 2

QTY: 4

QTY: 2

QTY: 8

QTY: 1

QTY: 4

QTY: 4

QTY: 3

Instructions

I used LEGO Digital Designer to create the build instructions that are in the video.  If you don't feel like pausing the video every 5 seconds you can download the LDD file for the tripod here.