Timer Sensors with Arduino

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ron_tg
 
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Timer Sensors with Arduino

Post by ron_tg »

My high school sophomore applied engineering class is working on a countdown timer system for measuring the elapsed time of a gravity propelled test sled vehicle.
How can we start/stop the timer using infrared sensors? Also which monochrome display shield (no color preference) do you recommend to see the elapsed time on the Arduino used at the finish line?
The vehicle is collecting crash data via an onboard Arduino with accelerometer. In the next iteration we will connect to Bluetooth/IoT, and look at streaming data to determine how effective our crash mitigation designs meet criteria. We welcome your suggestions. RTG

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Timer Sensors with Arduino

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

One of these beam-break sensors would be the best way to go:
https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/12/1 ... -5mm-leds/
For lowest latency response, you can connect them to one of the external interrupt pins (pins 2 or 3 on an UNO) and stop the timer in the interrupt handler.

There are a lot of good display options. The LCD Shield is one of the simplest to work with. The built-in pushbuttons are handy as well for implementing user interfaces.
https://www.adafruit.com/products/772

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