Non-invasive Indoor Method For Tracking Roller Derby Lap Times [brainstorming]

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dl_evans
 
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Non-invasive Indoor Method For Tracking Roller Derby Lap Times [brainstorming]

Post by dl_evans »

What would you use to track individual people's lap times around a roller derby track (think of a skating rink with a painted oval as the boundary). It's inside a rented skating rink so we can't install any hardware. It'd have to be setup and taken down the same night.

Here's what I've been thinking so far:
1. RFID tags on the laces of the skates and some kind of reader.
2. Reflective tape on the side of the skate and some kind of camera.

GPS is out because not only is it indoors but I think the rink is too small to even accurately get results.

Would a Raspberry Pi camera be good enough for the reflective tape idea? Is there an RFID reader that Adafruit sells that could scan tags from a distance? It'd have to be either overhead somehow or a few feet away from the boundary line so as not to get run over by the skaters.

Also, apologies if this isn't the kind of "help" that is normally on this forum. Feel free to delete.

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Non-invasive Indoor Method For Tracking Roller Derby Lap Times [brainstorming]

Post by Franklin97355 »

Could you use a break beam sensor and tripods to hold them?

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Non-invasive Indoor Method For Tracking Roller Derby Lap Times [brainstorming]

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

We don't have an RFID reader that will read tags at a distance. They do exist, but tend to be expensive. And they would not be able to detect precisely when the tag crossed the line - only that it was within detection range.

A camera based solution is probably worth investigating. A Raspberry Pi running OpenCV can do reasonably fast object detection. If you search the web you will find plenty of examples.

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