amazer

I am heavily involved in organising motorsport events, particularly hilllclimbs. For the uninitiated, hillclimbing is a where drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course. It's a timed solo event starting at the bottom and ending at the top of a hill or mountain. Pike's Peak is probably the best known hillclimb. At present the timing 'system' is a light beam/reflector at both ends of the track, sending a signal down a wire to a stopwatch. The times are written in a book as well as manually entered into an excel spreadsheet.

I want to create a computerised timing system. It will have a databse that I enter drivers details in before the event. They will be stored in a database so that I dont have to enter the details every race, like I do now with excel. (licence number as PK). All the competitors times would also be stored, with the date, so that I could call up any resutls at any time.

When the event starts I want to be able to control the entire show with a PC. When a car comes to the line I want to be able to hit a function key, F2 for eg, and that will pop up a dialog box to enter the car number. That car and drivers details should come on screen so that I can have a visual check its the right car. Then by clicking on a start button, the car gets the green light, the timing signals are sent straight into the computer, and timing entered automatically.... next car...F2 etc.

Thinking of a java application as its what I am most comfortable with, but also thinking of having an apache server, and using jsp pages or servlets... because I hate formatting things in a java frame.. have never quite mastered that! Any thoughts on what I should use?

And my main stumbling block would be how do I send signals to the green light from the computer? How do I get signals from the light beams to the computer? I know these kind of things would be in use for industrial applications everywhere, but its not something they teach you at uni. Any thoughts on how you do this. or links to information would be much appreciated.

Chris