Aug 18, 2016 1:33 pm
I was recently talking with my fencing coach, and he mentioned how people have tried to develop wireless alternatives for electronic fencing gear. If you've never seen it, every fencing blade (that's made for electric), has 2 or 3 prongs on it, which connect to a wire which the fencer snakes through his jacket out the bottom back, where it connects to a device with a cable on a spring-wound spool. Two of these devices connect at a score tracker to either make or break electric circuits (based on the type of fencing), to see if there's been a hit or not.
The problem, as I'm told, is that the wireless systems that exist today aren't really compatible with current tech, meaning companies producing blades and other items would have to change, and they don't want to. Plus, it's expensive! So given my electronics/programming experience, I thought it'd be neat to maybe attempt to build something where two micro PCs connect to the current fencing wire, then connect to a tablet via Bluetooth, where an app calculated hits.
There are a slew of problems from the device end, such as, given the current systems use electric circuits to detect hits, can a small wireless device carry enough power to get through a typical bout without being huge? One of the coaches at my club used to do product development for a fencing company, so I'll talk to him about the big electronics. I'm wondering from the computing end: in theory, my concept sounds fine, but I don't know a few things like, can a device connect to two bluetooth devices at once? I'd assume it'd need two bluetooth receivers? If you have any experience with something like a Raspberry, does this idea sound crazy?
The problem, as I'm told, is that the wireless systems that exist today aren't really compatible with current tech, meaning companies producing blades and other items would have to change, and they don't want to. Plus, it's expensive! So given my electronics/programming experience, I thought it'd be neat to maybe attempt to build something where two micro PCs connect to the current fencing wire, then connect to a tablet via Bluetooth, where an app calculated hits.
There are a slew of problems from the device end, such as, given the current systems use electric circuits to detect hits, can a small wireless device carry enough power to get through a typical bout without being huge? One of the coaches at my club used to do product development for a fencing company, so I'll talk to him about the big electronics. I'm wondering from the computing end: in theory, my concept sounds fine, but I don't know a few things like, can a device connect to two bluetooth devices at once? I'd assume it'd need two bluetooth receivers? If you have any experience with something like a Raspberry, does this idea sound crazy?
