High-Five Camera Puts Smiles On Strangers' Faces

Andrew Maxwell-Parish wants to make it clear that he is not a fan of handshakes.

"Handshakes just make me feel dirty," he said on a website that gives instructions for how to create a device he invented called the high-five camera. "It's too impersonal. It's a gesture with no soul and reeks of a corporate entity."

Maxwell-Parish created the camera to drive his point home. The device automatically films a short clip every time he slaps palms with someone. While the camera is intriguing, the reactions from complete strangers are a bit surprising. Who knew that a random high-five could put a smile on someone's face?

There are two pieces of technology behind the contraption: a GoPro camera and a device called an Arduino Yun. The latter is a microcontroller board that tells the camera when to record and stop.

With the high-five camera mounted on his helmet, Maxwell-Parish put it into action and uploaded the footage to Vimeo. The device works exactly as advertised, and people seem to get a kick out of it. Whether riding by on a bike or working behind a counter, strangers young and old are quick to exchange a high-five with Maxwell-Parish.

"Another ridiculous contraption that will hopefully extend an appreciation of the mighty high five," he wrote of the camera. "The quickest and most universal gesture for telling someone, 'you are awesome.'"

That is exactly what some commenters online are calling his invention. He even gained a fan in GoPro itself, which asked Maxwell-Parish to submit his video to the company's website. The University of Minnesota graduate happily obliged, and we can only imagine he offered up a high-five of the "air" variety in the process.