I’m working on a senior engineering project to create a DIY wavelight system for our high school track, where I can set a pace on a programmed app and use it for primarily team training and time trials and potentially meets (if it is allowed by state rules). Researching it professional wavelight is way overpriced and I feel it could be done much cheaper and at a smaller scale helping teams improve in workouts and in races and I thought I could try it out. I have some experience programming as I made a race timing system for my last years project so my main obstacle I feel is the funding and figuring out how large it should be. My plan is to focus a proof of concept on a $300 budget that we are given by our school covering the entire track with around 25–30 programmable, high brightness, weatherproof LED modules spaced farther apart. This will be my main goal which I’ll be happy with but If it works well I thought about asking the athletic director who used to be the track coach if he would be interested in helping fund a higher level system then expand to a full system with roughly 70–100 lights for a much larger budget, but that will be a consideration after I finish the first project. I’d love to get feedback on my project, especially regarding light selection, wiring strategies, and any cost-effective tips to improve visuals without breaking the bank. I feel I could really expand this if I get it right and make it on a much larger scale, let me know if I sound stupid or if this is a good idea and any thoughts
DIY Wavelight High school project - thoughts?
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That’s a great idea let us know how it turns out, it might end up being harder to make / control during workouts than you think but maybe not who knows. Either way good luck
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What’s the question?
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I urge you to make it open source and share all the details so we call can adopt your implementation. You could literally be responsible for improving distance running in US -- for all of us who don't have the privilege to buy an uber-expensive pace lights system.
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Or he could not to do that and make bank by selling his cheaper wave lights online (I know I'm getting ahead of myself)?
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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.
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yeah I'm thinking about it now it would look much better if there were more the hardest part is finding a light specific enough on Alibaba to mass order but they are actually much cheaper then I expected I think I could get around 50-100 if I get some cheap ones and it would look much better.
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haha definitely thought about that starting a wavelight business to high schools around the state and make bank lol, anyway if I can make this well I will totally think about expanding it to offer to schools for 10 times less than wave light does I feel like this could really be implemented more than it is right now
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I think like a RC car which follows like in lane 3 which follows the track at a pace would be cool. Like a robot chaser - maybe set it to follow the white line of the track using a vision system and determine the pace off of the speed adjusted for the extra distance of being in lane 3.
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andrew86239 wrote:
yeah I'm thinking about it now it would look much better if there were more the hardest part is finding a light specific enough on Alibaba to mass order but they are actually much cheaper then I expected I think I could get around 50-100 if I get some cheap ones and it would look much better.
I was gonna suggest chinese electronics websites - obviously chinese products have a bad reputation in the US, but their manufacturing base is enormous, and these days you can get very very high quality stuff for very cheap prices.
Good luck! please update us, i'm very interested in hearing how this turns out
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looking_good wrote:
I think like a RC car which follows like in lane 3 which follows the track at a pace would be cool. Like a robot chaser - maybe set it to follow the white line of the track using a vision system and determine the pace off of the speed adjusted for the extra distance of being in lane 3.
I had something similar in mind. Was thinking of building it whenever I get the time (which likely will be never lol)
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Check this company out. They are already working on affordable version for high schools.
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andrew86239 wrote:
I’m working on a senior engineering project to create a DIY wavelight system for our high school track, where I can set a pace on a programmed app and use it for primarily team training and time trials and potentially meets (if it is allowed by state rules). Researching it professional wavelight is way overpriced and I feel it could be done much cheaper and at a smaller scale helping teams improve in workouts and in races and I thought I could try it out. I have some experience programming as I made a race timing system for my last years project so my main obstacle I feel is the funding and figuring out how large it should be. My plan is to focus a proof of concept on a $300 budget that we are given by our school covering the entire track with around 25–30 programmable, high brightness, weatherproof LED modules spaced farther apart. This will be my main goal which I’ll be happy with but If it works well I thought about asking the athletic director who used to be the track coach if he would be interested in helping fund a higher level system then expand to a full system with roughly 70–100 lights for a much larger budget, but that will be a consideration after I finish the first project. I’d love to get feedback on my project, especially regarding light selection, wiring strategies, and any cost-effective tips to improve visuals without breaking the bank. I feel I could really expand this if I get it right and make it on a much larger scale, let me know if I sound stupid or if this is a good idea and any thoughts
I’m intending on testing various pacing modes using 50 meters of 5V-WS2812-1M60D LED strips(80$ on Alibaba for me), controlled by a Raspberry Pi Pico and powered via cabling from a centralized battery source. I would then scale up these (pico + 50m LED strip) segments to 400m.
If you’re interested in collaborating or considering open-sourcing a similar project, please share your GitHub repository—I’d be happy to assist!
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How about a wearable wavelight that projects a paced light in front of you? Then you won’t be limited to a track.
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Miami rush wrote:
How about a wearable wavelight that projects a paced light in front of you? Then you won’t be limited to a track.
That’s coming in the pipeline with the Meta Aria Gen 2 product line (if it ever happens). Having a laser affixed to anywhere besides the face is hard wrt to stabilizing position and projecting a visible line at the correct angle
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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
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.11 -
andrew86239 wrote:
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).00 -
Open-source project collaboration? wrote:
andrew86239 wrote:
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).My 50m order has already been shipped, but the estimated delivery date has shifted from April 22nd to May 22nd 🫠
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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.
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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
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