Project Description

The skate accelerometer consists of a tri-axis accelerometer mounted to a skateboard. It is to be mounted on the center of the board. Two accelerometers will be imbedded in two Velcro bands. These bands will be worn around the ankles of the user. An accelerometer will also be fitted to a helmet. These extra accelerometers are necessary to provide reference points for the accelerometer attached to the skateboard.

Each of these accelerometers will be coupled with a wireless system. The Arduino Xbee Shield Wireless Module will be used because it includes a wireless system and an accelerometer. The signals are transmitted to a microcontroller which is interfaced with a laptop computer to be analyzed and processed. The microcontroller that will be used is the Arduino Diecimila USB Microcontroller Board which uses a USB interface.

Position, speed, and acceleration of the skateboard will be measured with this data. Not only will these values be found but patterns will be detected. This will allow the computer to identify tricks performed and calculate hang time as well as height of jumps.

This data will be converted into an animation that can be recorded and displayed on the computer screen. A long term file of trick history will be made.

Monday, January 5, 2009

11/15/2008
Status

We have designed our systems structure of how we will pass data from the accelerometers. We are working on how we will attach our system to the skateboard.

We have also purchased a base set of supplies to test the Zigbee wireless system that we are going to implement in the project. That includes an accelerometer, microcontroller, wireless adapter with the Zigbee module and an extra Zigbee module to be connected to the PC. We have had a few difficulties getting the Zigbee modules to communicate correctly, but are working on the issue. We are also working on how to encase the electrical parts of the system to protect them from abuse while we test the skateboard movements.

So currently we are on schedule of designing the system and will be into our Assembly portion as scheduled on the Gantt chart for the project.

Richard Larsen

Quinn Jackson

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About Me

Logan, Utah, United States
Electrical Engineering student at USU. Responsible for the crop circles in England.