laptop as a stopwatch with an external switch

[Ron]

-This could be considered off-topic by some-

I'd like to set up some type of timing system for the individual
players on my soccer team to measure themselves when they are doing
sprints (5 - 10 secs with tenth of second accuracy).

Some type of button/switch/beam that the kid's feet would start the
timer with and something similar at the finish to stop the timer that
would be good. It would need to be combined with software that would
display the elasped time as well as save/log it to view later.

My goal would be for the "system" to be easy for me to put together for
a reasonable cost. Something off the shelf would be ideal, or if there
is some idea that wouldn't be hard to assemble, that would work also.
I don't have any great programming skills.

thanks,
Ron
RGRAHAM1 at MAINE dot RR dot COM

[Frederick Gotham]

Ron posted:

-This could be considered off-topic by some-

I'd like to set up some type of timing system for the individual
players on my soccer team to measure themselves when they are doing
sprints (5 - 10 secs with tenth of second accuracy).

Some type of button/switch/beam that the kid's feet would start the
timer with and something similar at the finish to stop the timer that
would be good. It would need to be combined with software that would
display the elasped time as well as save/log it to view later.

My goal would be for the "system" to be easy for me to put together for
a reasonable cost. Something off the shelf would be ideal, or if there
is some idea that wouldn't be hard to assemble, that would work also.
I don't have any great programming skills.

thanks,
Ron
RGRAHAM1 at MAINE dot RR dot COM

www.rentacoder.com

--

Frederick Gotham

[Richard Heathfield]

Ron said:

<snip>

>
I don't have any great programming skills.

Get some.

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)

[Skarmander]

Ron wrote:

-This could be considered off-topic by some-

I'd like to set up some type of timing system for the individual
players on my soccer team to measure themselves when they are doing
sprints (5 - 10 secs with tenth of second accuracy).

Some type of button/switch/beam that the kid's feet would start the
timer with and something similar at the finish to stop the timer that
would be good. It would need to be combined with software that would
display the elasped time as well as save/log it to view later.

My goal would be for the "system" to be easy for me to put together for
a reasonable cost. Something off the shelf would be ideal, or if there
is some idea that wouldn't be hard to assemble, that would work also.
I don't have any great programming skills.

You're right, this *is* completely off-topic. You're very unlikely to get a
useful response from a group dedicated to the C programming language when
your question does not involve C at all.

Eventually you might write a C program to handle the measurements, but
you're a long way from that.

Try Google. A search for "sports timing hardware" looks promising.

S.