Drag Strip Tree Demo

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Problem Description

Here's a program illustrating the use of timers to control the lights of a simulated drag strip starting tree.

Background & Techniques

Drag racing is a sport in which two vehicles race from a standing start for a fixed distance, usually 1/4 mile,  down a straight track with two lanes. 

This program was prompted by a user who is developing a drag strip simulation and wanted help in triggering the start with some visual clue.  My original version simply changed the color of  a circular shape at some random interval after an "Activate" button was clicked.  That evolved into a fairly complete model of the standard starting "tree", the Christmas tree, used in real races.

Lights are arranged in two columns, one for each racer.

 From top to bottom the rows indicate

bullet pre-staged (7 inches from the starting line),
bullet staged (at the starting line),
bullet three rows of yellow countdown light,
bullet the green "Go" light,
bullet and a red light if the racer starts too soon.      

 Two users may use buttons to pre-stage and stage their dragsters and click the "Activate start sequence" button to start the countdown. When the green light is lit, "P' or "Q" keys will report reaction times for each player.  Pressing the keys too soon results in a red light condition on the tree.

 An "Auto stage" checkbox automates pre-staging, staging, and activating start sequence lights.  

Notes for programmers

For programmers, I have tried to comment the code well enough to make clear how the timers work.  Timer1 controls the yellow lights and the green start light on the tree.  The StartLightsOn integer starts at 0 and is incremented each rime the timer even exit occurs.  Lights are turned within the exit by changing the color of the appropriate Tshapes from a dark to light shade of yellow or green.   There are two starting modes used in drag racing.  "Sportsman" mode triggers the three yellow lights and the green start light at 1/.2 second intervals. "Professional"  mode lights all 6  yellow lights simultaneously followed by the green lights 0.4 seconds later.  The current time of day is saved as StartTime when the green lights are lit.

The "Auto Activate" checkbox introduces two additional timers, AutoTimer1 and AutoTimer2, one for each racer which are triggered at random intervals to simulate their pre-stage and stage lights.  When both racers are staged, the Onclick event exit for the Activate button is called to start the countdown process.  

The Boolean form property "KeyPreview" has been set to true to allow form KeyPress event exits to be taken regardless of which control has the focus.    Keys other than P or Q are ignored; those two keys cause the current time minus the StartTime value to be displayed as the response time for the appropriate racer.

No actual racing here - we'll leave that for the future.

December 4, 2011:  About a month ago Bob Templeton, a drag car owner and enthusiast, wrote asking if it would be possible to control real lights on a real drag tree model that he was constructing to show with his car at the East Coast Indoor Nationals auto show.  He wanted to simulate the drag race starting sequence.   To make a long story shorter, I took on the project and we found a USB relay driver board from Numato, Inc.  I modified the drag strip tree program,  adding a page where the  he can specify the timing of the lights and which  then closes and opens the board relays according to  that schedule.  Here are some pictures Bob sent of the work in progress and the the show which ended today.  Click a thumbnail to see  larger view:

Work in process The car Car in action Tree (Front)

 

Tree (back) The Numato board - neat wiring! At the East Coast Indoor Nationals (looks crowded!) Bob's car at the East Coast . Indoor Nationals

.The relay version of the program should run everything that the original program did with the added relay simulator functions in separate section.  The source code download below includes the units required to recompile this version including the free Synaser serial port unit) .  Drivers for the realy board are available from the Numato website.   

The  executable download includes both the original version without relay driver support (Dragstertree.exe)  and the new version with relay driver support (DragsterTreeRelay2.exe).      

Running/Exploring the Program 

bullet Download source
bullet Download  executable

Suggestions for Further Explorations

I believe that in real drag racing there is a minimum acceptable reaction time, below which the driver is red-lighted because he must have made a 'lucky guess".  If true, that restriction could be implemented here also.

 

Original Date: July 21, 2009

Modified: May 15, 2018

 

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