An Opensource Raspberry Pi solution to Pinewood Derby

There are two main reasons why this project is of interest to me. When I was a cub scout I watched a couple of elderly gentlemen manage our Pinewood derby race. They had a system that managed the cars, the timing on the track, and a few electronic signs stating which car had come in first place and so on. I was intrigued at how they had done any of this. They kindly explained that they had used E3 embedded systems software and laser interrupts with timers. I was really impressed with this and said to myself "I am going to learn how to do this."

Additionally, I was at my ten year old brother's Pinewood derby competition recently. I was shocked at how bad the setup was and how often things would fail. The power was knocked out twice (by siblings of the scouts kicking the power out of the wall) and all the data was lost resulting in having to start the race all over again. The code being run was written in the 90s and was also being run on a computer from that time period. The sensors were photo sensitive and shadows being cast in the room set them off. This led to multiple reruns of the cars. The scouts where disinterested in the race, because the system gave no feedback. It really was a miserable experience for many. I hope to improve the situation for the scouts (and possibly adults) with Pinewood derby.