Judge.c - A simple text-mode lane judge for Pinewood Derby

This software is licensed under the GPL. If you find it useful, I encourage you to add features and fix bugs and send the patches back to me.

My son is no longer a cub scout, so I doubt I will run another derby any time soon. I'm releasing this into the wild to encourage others to make what they will of it.

It's so simple, there's no makefile:

$ gcc -o judge judge.c

You'll need to have the 'toilet' package installed to do big printing on the screen. If you don't have access to this, choose another big printer like figlet and change the source, or just use printf and squint.

To use, plug your Derby Stick into a USB port. Wait a second and the look at dmesg to see what device it to assigned to. Normally it will be something like /dev/ttyS0 or maybe /dev/ttyUSB0. Then pass this value to the judge program on the command line:

$ ./judge -p /dev/ttyS0

(Obviously, use YOUR devices dev entry, not mine.)

After this, follow the directions on the screen. The judge will tell you which lane won after each race and list the times.

For our races, we used a big sheet of paper with a double-elimination bracket printed on it. Then we would use a Sharpie to write down names and times. We awarded prizes for first, second, third, and best time, which wasn't necessarily one of the winners, as cars tend to slow down each time they are run.

It would be nice to see this as a fancy GUI application with lots of bells and whistles, but my expertise is device drivers, so I would have to learn a whole new API for that. Feel free to do that. I'm happy to accept patches and enhancements here.

Mitch Williams December 2015