Introduction

This senior design project is the Freescale Cup race timing system.  This race is done by the entry level students in the EELE 101: Intro to Electrical Fundamentals course as a final project. They receive a kit containing the parts needed to build the car.  They then test and adjust the settings of the car to maximize the speed while keeping the car on the track using a camera system.  The automated steering is done by a monochrome camera that watches the track and follows the black line in the center.


The contents of the Freescale Cup Car Kit (top) and a car racing on a track (bottom)

The current timing system for this race is not very user-friendly and the lap times need to be manually recorded.  This senior design project will redesign the system to be an automated system that associates a time to a car, saves the time, and displays the 10 fastest times recorded on a projector that is connected to the system wirelessly.

The motivation of this project is to move towards a more efficient process of timing the cars and make it easier on the monitor of the race to do this.  As stated previously, the current timing system is not very robust and not easy to set up or use.  It doesn't store the time in any way, making it necessary to manually record the lap times.  All this requires more setup time and more time in between race attempts.

The system that has been designed is relatively easy to setup and it would record times in a database and make the times easily accessible to be not only projected at a different location in the room, but also available online.  These times would also be saved semester to semester to make it possible to compare times between semesters.  An additional constraint that was accomplished was to make it possible to time multiple cars on the track at once.  This allows for the event to happen more quickly and would also allow students to have more chances to improve their times.

Sponsor Information

Prof. Ross K. Snider, Ph.D | College of Engineering

Associate Professor
538 Cobleigh Hall
Bozeman, MT 59717

Tel: (406) 994-1645
Fax: (406) 994-5958
Email: rksnider@ece.montana.edu


Advisor Information

Prof. Steven Shaw, Ph.D | College of Engineering

Associate Professor
532 Cobleigh Hall
Bozeman, MT 59717

Office: (406) 994-5982
Email: sshaw@montana.edu