This is a short follow-up post to the last one. I’ve named my project RATTY. Trying to mount 5 buttons within easy reach of the driver turned out to be a difficult problem to solve. So instead, I decided I could get away with a single button if I used a combination of clicking styles. I put the button on the gear shifter. I think the steering wheel would be a good place too.
I’m planning on using this as follows:
- Single-click: “Yes”
- Double-click: “No”
- Multi-click: “Bad stuff has happened”
- Long-click: “Pit request”
Here I am interacting with RATTY from the comfort of my desk. This is the output as it looks on my iPhone 6S Plus. I set the font slightly larger as the default is pretty small.
Here’s a link to the ratty GitHub repository where you can get the code if you want to build one yourself. I’m using an Arduino Uno WiFi R2, but I think you could use an Arduino Nano 33 IOT, which is about half the price ($22.55 with tax and shipping). I have one on order to build a second unit. A HotSpot will cost around $100, but you could use a phone instead.
The next step is to mount everything in the car.
you suck at racing 
Click Click Long Click: Bacon CheeseBurger no onions and fries please.
Click Clickety Click Click: I need a new playlist, I forgot this was an endurance race.
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Watch out for lots of contact bounce. Switches tend to do that in high vibration applications.
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I’m using a 25 ms debounce
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That might be enough, I’d probably go with 100ms. The shifter lever is vibrating a lot.
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I’m using 500 ms for the clicks. Anything between 25 and 500 is counted as a single click. Anything over 500 is a click-and-hold. Both clicks and holds debounce with the same value.
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Sounds good.
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Watch out for contact bounce on the switch, they tend to have a lot in high vibration environments.
You’ll probably want the double click speed to be fairly slow to allow lots of debounce time.
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At our Lucky Dog race in February the driver’s radio mic broke but you could still use the push to talk button to make clicks. We worked out a system:
1 Click in response to a question = Yes
2 Clicks in response = No
1 click unprompted = Checking in, everything ok
2 clicks unprompted = Something slightly wrong
3 clicks = Pitting now
Many many clicks = Car crashed, I am not dead (we had to use that one once)
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Nice. I’m doing the same thing, just logging it.
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