A Window into the Baylands: Building the EV Marsh Cam

By Manu Kallahalla and Arjun Sridharan, Gunn High School 

When the Environmental Volunteers (EV) EcoCenter began its revitalization this summer, we were handed an unusual assignment: find a way to bring the Palo Alto Baylands to people who couldn’t walk out onto the marsh themselves.

The goal was straightforward on paper: a livestream running around the clock, rain or shine.
At first, we figured it would be easy. Two teenagers who’d grown up around computers, tackling a camera setup? How hard could it be?

Turns out, very!

The project pulled us into corners of tech we hadn’t touched before: picking the right camera, wiring up the network, getting the software to cooperate, and getting the whole thing broadcasting live. We spent long stretches untangling Ethernet cables, wrestling with RTSP streams and OBS settings, and staring at setups that had worked just fine minutes earlier before mysteriously falling apart.

At some point, the entire camera was being broadcast elsewhere, simply because we had missed a single “!” in the password.

Progress rarely moved in a straight line. We’d fix one thing, feel a rush of relief, and then trip over a new problem we hadn’t even known was lurking. Test, patch, break, repeat. That became the rhythm of the whole summer.

And getting the stream online was really just the beginning. The harder question was keeping it online. The computer couldn’t be allowed to doze off. A routine update couldn’t be allowed to kill the whole system without warning. And whenever something did crash, we needed a way to bring it back without babysitting it around the clock.

That’s where the real lesson hit us: there’s a world of difference between building something that works once and building something people can actually depend on, day after day.

It also forced us to zoom out. The camera, the network, the software, the stream, and the person on the other end watching; none of these existed in isolation. Every piece had to hold up its end for the whole thing to feel seamless.

But honestly, the most exciting part wasn’t the troubleshooting. It was seeing what the finished system could actually do.

The Marsh Cam is now a live window into the Baylands; a way to watch birds cut across the sky, tides creep in and out, wildlife wander through, or the sun sink slowly over the water, all unfolding in real time.

Now we’re already looking ahead. Could teachers bring the Marsh Cam into their classrooms? Could it become a way to tell stories about the creatures who show up on screen? Could it track the marsh shifting through the seasons? And maybe, could someone who’s never set foot in the Baylands stumble across the stream, watch for just a minute or two, and feel pulled to go see it in person?

That’s what we hope happens.

Because the camera itself isn’t really the point. The point is getting people to notice what’s here.

If people notice the Baylands, they might visit.
If they visit, they might care.
And if they care, they might help protect it.

P.S. We’ve learned that technology doesn’t always cooperate. If the Marsh Cam or EcoCenter monitor goes down, please don’t get frustrated, we’re probably one reboot away from getting it back.

P.P.S. We’re grateful to Environmental Volunteers for trusting us with this project. A huge thank you to Via, Toby and Adan for answering our many, many questions and helping us troubleshoot along the way, and to EV’s Executive Director, Anu, for giving us room to experiment (and occasionally fail!), and encouraging us to think bigger about what the Marsh Cam could become.