S-Loadout: the Future of Fencing

Hye I am Sam! Since 2016 I am very active in the sport of fencing. One thing that has bugged me from the start was that I had no way of knowing physically how good I was doing.

So after one year of studies in IOT I decided, enough was enough! I am going to make my own Smart loadout for fencing.

In this instructable I will share with you the steps you can take to create your own smart fencing equipment.

Come on! What are you waiting for!

In the linked PDF you will find a Bill of materials needed for this project

Keep in mind prices may vary from your location and I have not listed materials for the shell of the project as I improvised with this and highly recommend you do so as well for an extra fun experience ;)

Lastly before we start I want you to keep in mind that making a project like this takes time, I have timed more or less how long it took to make and a rough estimation will be around: 12 to 15 hours depending on how quickly you can make the shell and connect the wires

For this project you will need quite the supplies:

For the main station:

- Raspberry pi 4 + T-connector piece + power supply for Rpi

- LCD display + breadboard power supply

For the suit:

-Esp32 + powerbank for power

Sensors:

- Pulse sensor for the heartbeat

- Accelero sensor for the acceleration of your movement

-Air humidity sensor for in your mask

Actuator:

- Neopixel ring (i used a 24x for this project)

For connections

-Lots of connections cables both FTM and MTM

En garde as most of you know means get ready so that is exactly what we are going to do now.

After gathering all the needed components as seen in th Supplies section, you will need to plan a bit out.

• For the electronics
  • In the pdf you will see:
    • a detailed schematic on how to connect the parts
    • a schematic for with a breadboard
  • I advice to first look at both and use them to build your electronic skeleton

• For the shell
  • As you might have guessed a skeleton wont do much without a body, well same here so we will prepare a good body for our skeleton of electronics.
  • In the pdf you will see:
    • a detailed step by step to build the shell

With these preparations out of the way we can start the next step,

êtes-vous prêt !

In fencing the second thing a ref asks is if you are ready to commence the duel.
If you followed the previous step you should be ready to go! Well almost, as any good fencer knows this is when you make sure you didnt forgot to tie your shoelaces or connect your weapon or mask.

So in this step we will get ready to play and test by adding the code to our ESP and RPI

> The code is found in this GitHub : Github

In the Github Readme files you will find detailed documentation for the whole project.

• Install the ESP32 code on the esp
• Install the Rpi's code on the Rpi

After this its hooking it all up:

• For the main box i would advice as to build it in a way as seen in the picture
  • Rpi on the right side
  • Breadboard + power supply on the left
  • Lcd on the elevated platforms
• For the suit its also as seen in the picture:
  • Connect the right cables so the sensors work
  • Optional encase the cables

If all of this is done there is not much left to do

So you can say to the ref: "Oui je suis prêt" and get ready to duel

Congrats! You just finished building the S-Loadout!

Now how does it work ?

Easy!

1. Power on the Rpi and the LCD
2. Power the esp32
3. on the lcd display (if connected to wifi) will be the IP adress of the visual website for this project you are locally running on the RPi
4. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading, I hope you can remake this and if there are any questions feel free to leave them in the comments down below!

And dont forget: always respect your opponents and dont modify your suit during a real duel.