Progress update

 It's been a quiet few months on the development side, had a lot going on with the day job and with actually timing events (more blog posts to come on that). However, where is the project at?

Well the original hardware project is on hold, somewhat indefinitely. I've still got all the kit and it works, but the next big step is integrating it with Webscorer by getting a raspberry pi to emulate an RFID reader using the excellent open source project here (if you're trying to get an older RFID reader to work with Webscorer - this is the place to look).

Why the need to integrate with Webscorer? Quite simply for price and feature set, I can't produce anything remotely close. Their support is excellent, I use the software and recommend it. Which brings me to the current solution, I'm using Webscorer's recommended bluetooth NFC setup, with both a tablet at the finish line and mobile phones at checkpoints. The mobile phones are setup with multi-network SIM cards so can get signal near enough anywhere.

The checkpoints look as per the picture below, essentially two bluetooth readers paired to a phone in the middle, connected to a wired speaker (the middle bit might change soon). Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it is in improving. More to come soon, plus a write up on the races I've timed.