This booth is similar to a photo booth except it took 30 second confessional videos. My friend Michael built the box while I cobbled together the electronics for use at one of my apartment parties in New York. Once people figured out that you didnt have to pose for photos, it was a huge hit.
I used an Arduino as a controller to simply turn on a Mino video camera, light a 10mm LED and hit record. The user could either hit the button again when they were finished or wait 30 seconds for the timer to be up. Power was supplied through a wall wart to make sure nothing died during the evening.
I milled an aluminum faceplate and mounted the camera, LED and Pushbutton to it. I didnt want any curious hands to be messing with the system so I was sure to mount everything behind the plate so that nothing could be messed with. An LED light strip was mounted inside the booth to provide continuous lighting for the camera in the otherwise dark booth. I was really worried about the brightness of the lighting and how well the audio would get picked up since the music was blaring outside the booth but everything worked great.