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How should my runners run??

lorrainbow

My next element14 presents video uses an arduino to move runners along a track, according to their strava data. The first runner to reach 100km wins!

There's a short video on my twitter: 

The questions I have for my lovely element14 community is how should I move the runners?

At the moment they're running all of their kilometres at once, one at a time. e.g. runner1 runs their total 50km, runner2 runs their total 75km, etc.

We could make them all run at once. 

We could make them run each run at a time, e.g. runner1 runs their first run 5km, runner2 runs their first run 10km and so on and then loop back to runner1 and their 2nd run. OR finally all runners run run1, then all runners run run2, etc. 

EDIT: To clarify, it's not a live track. There's a button and when it's pressed all the runners reverse to the start line then start running. Otherwise I'd miss my runner moving!

  • I think it depends on how you are planning on displaying this ?

    I would have expected for the runners to advance as their data is updated on Strava.

    However you would rarely see any animation that way just who is currently in the lead the next time you looked.

    But you could have a user button that does an action replay whereby the runners are temporarily reset back to the start line and it replays the activity in the order that it happened,  from zero to the current position.

  • A total then B total is probably more accurate.

    However, All running simultaneously per run would give it more of a race look.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    You're not planning on becoming one of those 'high speed types' that lap me ten times on the campus perimeter road and make me feel bad about myself are you ?

    (I'll be the one in the fifth lane - no need bothering with a motor on that one, just glue me to the start position...)

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Exactly how I plan to do it, have a reset to start line. I've updated the post to clarify

  • in reply to lorrainbow

    I think an option to replay in sequence of actual activity then.

    Runner 1 might complete 3 runs before runner 2 completes their first run. So replay would show:

    • Runner 1, Run 1
    • Runner 1, Run 2
    • Runner 1, Run 3
    • Runner 2, Run 1
    • Runner 1, Run 4
    • Runner 2, Run 2

    with a slight pause between them to indicate that Runner 1 did three runs before Runner 2 did their first run.

    If runners 3 and 4 go out for a run together, then they should replay together.

  • Very nice looking machine so far - smooth.

    I like option 2 - all run together to their current totals, even if they are different. This allows the whole race to be re-run to the latest data every time you reset and it will always look like a race.

    If you have advancement grid lines on the track, you can shoot the video from an angle so all runners are visible even when running neck-a-neck, and you would still be able to tell relative position.

    Will real runners be able to log in to the camera and reset/rerun the race?

  • I think you may have been spending too much time in Blackpool recently Slight smile

  • Are you going to make the design modular such that it is easily scalable ?

    You may have 4 runners to start with but say a couple more runners want to join in.

    Can you remove a side, slot in two additional track modules, daisy chain them onto the existing bus, then replace the side; so as to now have a 6 runner simulation ?

    Could be fun for STEM type activities where each student gets to build their own track section and then they are combined together into a larger project. 

  • If you want to get really fancy, you could equate the time your avatar runners take to run the course (running continuously) to the total time the total race period is expected to take and have each avatar start each leg at a time proportionately equivalent to the time they actually reported running the leg. For example if the race period is 10 days and the avatars can run their course in 10 seconds; then each day or runner time corresponds to 1 second of avatar time. If a runner starts their first leg half a day after the race starts, then their avatar would start its first leg a half second after the avatar race start. If their second run starts 2 days into the race period, then the avatar's second leg would start 2 seconds into the avatar race. You might want to scale it so there is a minimum of 1 second between legs, because real runners will also have that 1 day gap. 

  • in reply to dougw

    If you are only running an hour a day that would mean the avatar would cover their distance for the day in 1/24 second. Although given that no-one is likely to be running >12h in one day, you could perhaps safely add 1/2 second to the avatar motion. 

    Apparently real runners use cars these days Slight smile

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65322631