I am going to try to pull this off! I have 5 weeks to get it done. This is for the elementary school that my kids go to, there all getting involved in getting the cars, track, and timing system all done.
I was initially thinking a MSP430G2553
The controller would be able to
Drop starting gate and start timing with a pushbutton
( I really want to do a drag race light tree, but I may be getting too ambitious)
Record the time of each lane and write to display
Lane lights to light up winner lane.
I know I could build the lane win lights easily with components, but I am hoping to pull off the timing and display to screen. Something simple like print to cmdline screen or the UART interface in CCS.
Sooo do yall think I am out of my mind trying to go with this approach or?
I am thinking the lane sensors would just be photodiodes in the track, sending inputs back to the controller
A Button input that will trigger the timer to start, and output to drop the start gate
Capture the time of each lane upon a change in state of the input pin, stop timer on the input of the last pin.
Thanks!