Dragster Racing Lights (Christmas tree)

The main purpose of the project is to create a DIY solution for dragster lights in order to have an affordable solution for someone who wants to practise his/her reaction time and calculate the total time.

For detailed infromations about how the lights function can be found to the following links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree_(drag_racing)

https://www.autoweek.com/racing/nhra/a35431274/how-nhra-christmas-tree-works-and-what-colors-mean/

Pre Stage

Pre Stage is the first level where the <<wheels>> break the laser. When the front tires of a race vehicle break the first of those two light beams, the top blue led lights on as we see on the following picture where we disrupt the first laser and the top blue led lights on.

Stage

Stage is the second level where the <<wheels>> break the laser. When the front tires of a race vehicle break the second of those two light beams, the down blue light comes on as we see on the following picture where we disrupt the second laser and the down blue led lights on together with the top blue led light.

After both blue leds light up, a random time duration between 1-3 s is generated in order to light up the next 3 yellow lights. When the yellow leds light up, there is a margin of 0.4 s in order for the green led to light up.

If the driver, leave the line before <0, 4 s, his/her pass is invalid due to their reaction time was lower than 0, 4s and so the red led lights up. This can be seen on the following video.

If the driver, leave the line after >=0, 4 s, his/her pass is valid and the green led lights up. This can be seen on the following video.

Finishing Line

Here is the last point where the total time of the pass is calculated and also the exit speed of the vehicle. The speed of the vehicle is not calculated in this project. Maybe in the near future, the calculation of speed will be added.

For the 3D Printer parts, the Creality Ender 3 Pro printer was used. For the creation of the 3D parts (.stl), the Autodesk Fusion 360 was used and for the generation of the (.gcode) the program Ultimate Cura was used.

This is the first version of the project and is done in a trial level. The next level of the project is to transfer and test it on real dimensions (bigger leds, find appropiate lasers and laser receivers for these dimensions,...), but also find an efficient way to calculate the exit speed of the vehicle. In the end, it has to be easy to move from place to place.

Because I am constantly changing the code for impovements, the code will be published when the whole project is finished (on real dimensions). I would like to read your suggestions on the comments.