How do you plan to turn on/off the lights? Is the blue tooth range high enough on the modules you're thinking of using? It would need to be 60ish meter range to reach every part of the rail from the middle of the track. A lot of blue tooth devices don't reach that far.
im thinking using a wifi or rf controller, or maybe even just have it all wired together and have a wired controller , I'm not too worried about the controls right now but I should definitely consider that. do you have any suggestions for that
I think controlling the power source at a central location and having long extension cords or the equivalent would be the easiest and cheaper than buying everything needed to receive the signal from further away
thank you this is very helpful, so you have planned to do a similar project, starting at 50m and if it works you will expand to 400? This is interesting also looking at that other company they posted who tried the same thing, it looks they tested with full strips and then looks like they switched to space them out every one meter for every light. So you are trying to buy like short distance led lights like 25mm away from each other and expand that around the whole track? that sounds like a decent idea if they are high power enough, my original idea was much larger lights around every 4m, lmk what your idea is and if you have a link to the lights you are purchasing that would be very helpful. I will share the code possibly once I'm done with the project but I'm still very far away I'm just in the planning stage right now. I am totally open to collaboration I am not good at code whatsoever that's all ChatGPT lol, but yeah I am willing to share ideas if you are working on a similar project I feel we could really bring this technology to track to teams who aren't going to shell out 20 grand for overpriced wave light and we can bring this to the masses
The estimated cost will probably still approach $600-$1000. The shipping is where the cost of the LEDs begins to hit and that doesn’t cover the 8x raspberry pi picos(I think the W series is the WiFi enabled one that you want), power cables (rails from the battery to each 50m LED strip segment + usb connectors to each pico), battery + charger, buck converters, fuses, central circuit breaker, and maybe even a portable network router (if the WiFi is spotty near the track or if mobile hotspot latency is too slow). Some clips/stands to anchor the strips next to the track will be cheap if you have 3D printer access.
is the link to the LEDs I bought to test. I got 50m for roughly $80(I think you get free shipping on your first account purchase).
welp, at least i am getting 50m before the tariffs. not sure it remains feasible unless something changes. the US LED market volume is 94% manufactured in China and the rates per meter are 10x domestically from some initial search/estimates
I think you will find 25 lights (1 every 16 meters) is completely inadequate for pacing purposes. The runner has to see the lights “moving” along with them for it to be helpful. The programming part would be super easy. The hard part is the physical parts of this project.
25 lights could be enough to be very helpful. even if you divide the track with 8 markers it could be very helpful. look back into systems of pacing that jeremy warner used. with cones and sound cues. for many situations some sort of audio signal can be more practical than the lights
How do you think it will help your team? Are you going to shoot for PRs at home dual meets? Having precise pacing won’t make any difference in interval workouts.
How do you think it will help your team? Are you going to shoot for PRs at home dual meets? Having precise pacing won’t make any difference in interval workouts.
wrong... warners coach is way more effective than you. it can matter a lot for interval pacing
How do you think it will help your team? Are you going to shoot for PRs at home dual meets? Having precise pacing won’t make any difference in interval workouts.
wrong... warners coach is way more effective than you. it can matter a lot for interval pacing
Do other high schools use them? American Fork or Newbury Park when they had the great runners?How could it possibly make a difference in interval training? It seems like 20x400m would be the same workout with, or without, the lights.
Are colleges that don’t host big meets also getting them installed?
This post was edited 14 minutes after it was posted.
bannisters use of skilled rabbits is enough clue that you are likely mistaken.
that a program can get great results without using useful tools does not prove that tools are not useful. or that the program can not be improved
the most basic fact about how would your 20 x 400 workout be different... in warners workout he would have pace clues at least every 50 meters to help him to stay within the parameters of his pace target. many people might get some clues every 100 meters. some might wait all the way to 400 to see the pace. some might get cues every 20 to 33 meters. etc.. if adjustments are to be made it is useful to get the feedback to make those adjustments way before you finish the 400. if you admit this by checking your splits every 100 or 200 of your 400, then you are also admitting that feedback much more frequently than every 100 m could be helpful. a beep or a light clue timed for the given pace is much easier to interpret than a time cue. number one you dont have to check your watch. and you dont have to memorize all the splits or do the math with all the 10ths and 100ths..... if it is useful to dial in to specific paces. then it is useful to use feedback to help dial in. until the paces become reflexive. if you are trying to recover quickly then you dont want to go faster than your target by much. but you want to get right up to it. this will be much easier with pace cues than without them. a primary obstacle to many programs is runners pushing themselves too hard in practice. with the pace cues a coach could spell out- you can go as fast as the target but no faster. this could put the runner in position to do the intervals , take it closer to the edge, without over extending, and recover quicker.