The earlier Derby mission
Again in June 2023, Lorraine Underwood from element14 Presents was impressed by the traditional arcade recreation ‘Derby’ and wished to indicate how far she and some others have run by constructing a customized model. This re-imagined setup concerned changing the jockeys with runners and having them transfer alongside a motorized observe till they reached the tip. Maybe probably the most fascinating facet is how the Arduino microcontroller fetches runner distance data from the Strava API dynamically, thus eradicating the necessity for guide information entry.
Designing a ladder
Carrying on with the theme of displaying group working distances, this new mission would change the aggressive component for a higher deal with collaboration in direction of a typical objective. A ladder, adorned with two strips of LEDs and pushed by a Raspberry Pi Pico W, reveals the space everybody within the group has achieved by lighting up a sure amount relying on the cumulative miles of the group. Initially, Underwood thought-about snaking a single strip of LEDs all through the ladder, however realized that it could lose the ladder form as soon as illuminated, so she as an alternative positioned a strip on all sides and used translucent rungs to hold the sunshine throughout with out the necessity for further LEDs.
That is no moon; it is a area station
Every rung was 3D printed in a white materials which permits the sunshine to go by means of and create a shiny glow. In the meantime, the moon was fashioned by layering strips of paper mache over a balloon and letting it dry. Establishing this mission was going properly, till Underwood realized that the moon is almost 240,000 miles away, or about 9.6x the circumference of Earth, making it an not possible problem to beat inside a yr. Nonetheless wanting to include an area theme, the moon was exchanged for a Lego Worldwide Area Station since it is just 253 miles away.
Retrieving Strava information
Identical to within the Derby working problem mission, there are a couple of steps that have to be accomplished with a view to get the working information for everybody. First, Underwood’s entry token is retrieved by sending her shopper ID, secret, and refresh token to Strava’s authentication endpoint. Subsequent, that token is used to get a JSON payload containing all actions after a sure date, which in flip permits the entire distance to be collected and saved to a variable.
Programming
Now that the entire working distance might be discovered, Underwood turned her consideration to how that data might greatest be displayed. Every time the space is fetched, LEDs on all sides are up to date with the precise runner’s colour to point not solely the space, but in addition which runner has achieved it with a view to add again a small aggressive component. A rainbow mode was additionally included as a enjoyable startup sequence.
Potential adjustments
Though the ladder works nice for exhibiting how shut everyone seems to be to the ISS, Underwood states there are a couple of modifications she needs to make, with the principle one involving stealthier energy supply so unpleasant wires can’t be seen. Moreover, she has been toying with the concept of together with extra APIs, such because the one for the ISS’ present location, so the ladder can show when the station is shut through GPS and the web.
For extra data, you’ll be able to watch Underwood’s video right here on the element14 Presents YouTube channel.
