[dorkbotpdx-blabber] Fwd: [freegeek-social] Bike Counter for WNBR -- ideas? volunteers?

[Daniel Johnson]

Thought maybe someone here would be interested in devising a way to
accuratly count 1000+ naked cyclists.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bobby Kovacich <lowtire at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, May 25, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [freegeek-social] Bike Counter for WNBR -- ideas? volunteers?
To: Social chatter by people at and interested in Free Geek
<social at lists.freegeek.org>


I don't think the hose would ever give an accurate count.  If you want
to know exactly, I would say having a picture/movie of the start and
finish and maybe a few other points along the way and then count the
individual bikes in the pictures.  I have the camera anda tripod...

Bobby

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 4:44 PM, Steve Kirkendall
<skirkendall at dsl-only.net> wrote:
> I'm writing a countdown timer for the World Naked Bike Ride on June 14,
> and the question has been asked: What should it show when the countdown
> hits 00:00?  The most ambitious idea is a bike counter, so we'll know
> exactly how many bikes our ride has.  Last year, Portland tied with
> London for the largest rides in the world with about 800 riders each,
> but those were just estimates.  We're hoping for around 1200 riders this
> year, and sole ownership of the title.
>
> Does anybody here have ideas on how to make a bike counter?  Do you have
> the hardware?  Do you know how to interface it to the computer?  And the
> biggest question of all: Does anybody want to take on this challenge,
> bearing in mind that the ride takes place in less than three weeks?
>
> Here's what I'm thinking:
>
> Well, first I guess I'm thinking that there's NO WAY I have time to do
> this myself.  But if I did, I'd look to get multiple segments of hose,
> like gas stations use to ring a bell when somebody drives up.  I figure
> we'd need multiple hoses because with over 1000 bikers crossing a single
> hose in a couple of minutes, the hose would just pretty much stay
> flattened all the time; it'd count everybody as one really big bike,
> which is obviously not right.  So we need multiple hoses, each with
> its own transducer of some kind, all connected to a single computer.
>
> An alternative sensor design would be to use light sensors about 1cm
> above the ground.  Again, with multiple sections.  I don't know if this
> would be easier to implement or more reliable than the hoses though.
>
> To connect the sensors to the computer, one idea I had was to get an
> 8-port serial board, connect each sensor to the Carrier Detect line,
> and then write software that watch for changes to all those CD lines.
> (I think 8 sections would be adequate.  I haven't done the research
> though.)
>
> --
> Steve Kirkendall  /  kirkenda at cs.pdx.edu  /  skirkendall at dsl-only.net
> "Get a bicycle.  You will not regret it.  If you live." -- Mark Twain
> _______________________________________________
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>



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