The goal of the CMUcam project is to provide simple vision capabilities to small embedded systems in the form of an intelligent sensor. Since the project is open source, everything they've done is available for download and use in your own projects!
PyroFactor: 
May 1st, 2008 at 8:27 am
I’ve worked with the CMUcam2. Sorry to say but it’s an overpriced piece of crap that was intended as a moneymaker. The cam has insane sys requirements, horrible performance and it ends up overheating if you use it for more than 20 minutes. Yeah a camera that overheats…
Just because it’s CMU doesn’t mean it’s good.