If you’re a die-hard sports fan, there’s nothing you love more than staying abreast of developments in the league, from top to bottom. [Kiu] had a family member that was big into NFL, so set about building them a remarkably cool ladder tracker.
The tracker displays the NFL league table with a ten-minute delay, thanks to a paid live data feed from MySportsFeeds.com. When an update comes in, miniature helmets representing each team in the competition are moved into the correct order. The helmets sit on little plastic tags that make moving them easy, reliable, and repeatable. Built using parts familiar to the 3D printer world, this tracker relies on steppers and V-rails for linear movement, under the command of an Arduino Nano.
It’s a build that would look great in any games room, and we bet a scaled-up version would look the business in an upmarket sports bar. Let’s be honest – the league’s top quarterbacks will all be fighting to have one of these sooner rather than later. That’s not to say it won’t sting to come home to your team’s helmet scooting down the board after a painful loss!
We’ve seen some other interesting sports tracking projects over the years, too. Video after the break!
There are some teams where you just glue a stack of their helmets in the Last Place position, saving the trouble of moving them.
B^)
And every time a team changes their mascot, logo, or name, or when a team enters or leaves the league, you have to buy or remove a helmet. Which happens more often than you would think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_franchise_moves_and_mergers
A simple web page would be so much more flexible and easier to read. Also, the music in the video was incredibly annoying, I had to watch on mute.
Well, at least the Packers will stay in Green Bay, but that doesn’t rule out a logo change. B^)
Wow, thanks for your incredibly insightful and uplifting comment. Yeah, another boring web page is exactly the type of thing a football fan would love to hang in their den.
Music could have been worst … rap for example … So I too muted the music as wasn’t helpful in telling what is going on :) .
This wouldn’t be a project I’d tackle as it is a waste of wall space, but, hey, technically it looks like a ‘fun’ project :) . Neat! Hmmm. Wonder if you could change to a ‘box’ configuration (6×6 example) to save some room. The higher the standings the higher the helmet will be in the box. Highest on the upper left? Just a thought….
With my current setup – having the helmets on plates sticking out in the front – it is important for best viewing experience, you look rather down on them. One of the reasons I went with a pure horizontal setup.
Give it 2 arms, one to hold the first helmet instead of parking it in a temporary spot.
Good idea. Maybe on the next version :)
Came to say this. It’ll save so much time and so many movements.
Small correction, only the prototype was based on an Arduino Nano, now its running on an AVR64DA32.
This is a cool project. Well executed.
<3
How about a CTE tracker so we can see the devastating impact of football on players families and their health care expenses. When you have to put someone in their 40s in a nursing home they are going to consume millions of dollars in scarce health care resources, and we have more children growing up without a father.
How can a person of good conscience participate in this travesty?
Let’s end bullfighting and boxing first.
Well, IMHO, lets just let people do what people will do, without ‘forcing’ the issues in your/mine personal view of how things should work :) . If you or I don’t like something, then don’t do it… But don’t force it down someone else’s throat…. So to speak.
But the impact on society is real, and measurable. I don’t have a solution, of course.
I look forward to someone upgrading this to a proper sport like Formula 1 or MotoGP.
Doing this with Moto GP bikes would be so awesome
Wow – congratulations – an impressive system.
I can only imagine, how much work / time was needed to get the positioning so precise and smooth, as it is shown in the video. Can you explain the different LED color status in the different modes? I think I understand green and red, but what does purple indicate? Thanks!
Thx. Actually the positioning is quite simple as you just have to be consistent on the amount of steps your are driving the stepper motor. Precise enough.
When it is showing regular standings (league, conference, division) the color gradient goes from red (bad) to green (good).
In the playoffs, red means that they didn’t qualify, yellowish that they qualified but have been kicked out and green that they are still competing or are the final winning team.
Purple always indicates that those helmets are at wrong position. Blue is just indicating that the system is booting.
The very first and very last LED turn on blue if wifi doesn’t work or the server isn’t reachable and cyan if the server reports problems for retrieving or parsing data.