Athletics Time-Keeping and Position Monitoring System

This project basically involves a basic algorithm of a motion sensor stopwatch which also determines that which athlete on a particular lane finished off first.

When the push-button is pressed, it starts the stopwatch and the buzzer sounds. Out of four infrared sensors at the end, the one which gets the HIGH signal first stops the stopwatch and the respective led bulb glows. Ultimately showing the time of the fastest athlete.

Why position monitoring?

It is obvious that when two athletes finish off some how equally it creates ambiguity in the final decision. Thus in order to save time and to have a clear decision I used this idea to be implemented in the algorithm.

It is basically a glimpse of the idea. You can use long range infrared sensors to make it functional at a larger level.

TCRT5000 infrared sensors x 4

Arduino UNO board x 1

LED's x 4

16*2 LCD Display with i2c module x 1

Push Buttons x 2

Jumper Wires

I used TCRT5000 infrared sensors, which actually have a low range thus I made lanes of approximately 4 cm. It must be made sure that these sensors are glued upright to the designated platform to make sure all these sensors take a uniform reading.

I used Balsa wood sheet to make this platform. Balsa sheets are quiet easy to cut thus they allow to make a neat outlook.

16*2 LCD Display with i2c module Connections:

SDA = A4

SCL = A5

GND = GND pin on Arduino board

VCC = 5V pin on Arduino board

TCRT5000 infrared sensor-1 Connections:

DO = Digital pin-10 on Arduino board

GND = GND pin on Arduino board

VCC = 5V pin on Arduino board

TCRT5000 infrared sensor-2 Connections:

DO = Digital pin-11 on Arduino board

GND = GND pin on Arduino board

VCC = 5V pin on Arduino board

TCRT5000 infrared sensor-3 Connections:

DO = Digital pin-7 on Arduino board

GND = GND pin on Arduino board

VCC = 5V pin on Arduino board

TCRT5000 infrared sensor-4 Connections:

DO = Digital pin-6 on Arduino board

GND = GND pin on Arduino board

VCC = 5V pin on Arduino board

Led-1 Connections:

+pin = Digital pin-2 on Arduino board

-pin = GND pin on Arduino board

Led-2 Connections:

+pin = Digital pin-3 on Arduino board

-pin = GND pin on Arduino board

Led-3 Connections:

+pin = Digital pin-4 on Arduino board

-pin = GND pin on Arduino board

Led-4 Connections:

+pin = Digital pin-5 on Arduino board

-pin = GND pin on Arduino board

Push-button-1 Connections:

pin-1 = GND pin on Arduino board

pin-2 = Digital pin-9 on Arduino board

Push-button-2 Connections:

pin-1 = 5V pin on Arduino board

pin-2 = +pin of buzzer

Both push buttons must be placed side by side and their buttons must be glued to the same piece of wood to make a single functional button. This may seem odd but I used this technique to make sure that the buzzer sounds when the push button for the timer is pressed.

When the 'single' push button is pressed the timer must start and the time displayed on the liquid crystal display is set to be displayed in milli seconds in order to have great precision. When one of the infrared sensor reads a HIGH signal the stopwatch stops and the corresponding led glows. But when the first infrared sensor reads HIGH then the second infrared sensor to read the HIGH signal must not interfere with the time calculated.

If this code doesn't work then upload the code to find the address of i2c LCD first.