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Found: DIY Cycle Chaser Projector Casts Your Images On The Road

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Make-a-Cycle-Chaser

Ingenuity has been making the commute safer for cyclists. Ideas like the Blaze Laserlight put images on the ground that are more visible to drivers.

The Cycle Chaser is a ‘weekend project’ that can take bike light design from Raspberry Pi and improve on it. By adding a battery powered projector, it can put images on the ground that can be programmed by the user.

Raspberry Pi is an online resource to make your own projects, and every person does their own soldering, wiring and assembly. Needless to say, this is not for the simple beginner, as you will need to understand the basics of programming, be able to read technical schematics, and trouble shoot the thing once you have it all together. See how it works after the jump…

It picks up wheel speed with a standard bicycle computer-style sensor and wheel-mounted magnet.  It is programmed so when the wheels are spinning at 60 RPM, the projection will play 1 frameper second, but the user can alter this by changing the programming code. Once you finish, the unit mounts to your rack. The pi system easily attaches to the projector with an HDMI cable.

Just think of the possibilities with this idea. If one could program the project effectively, any number of advertisements, messages, or even a map fed from a cell phone could be projected on the ground.

Do you have the know-how to make one of these? Give it a try, and let us know how it goes.

 

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LateSleeper
LateSleeper
9 years ago

This is a cool hack, but I get the impression Tim Krueger doesn’t really understand what he’s seeing or who did it. Rasberry Pi is both the name of the popular single-board computer used in this build and the name of the non-profit foundation that designed it for use in educational settings. Rasberry Pi Foundation are cool folks, but crediting them for designing this bike projection rig is a bit like thanking the lumber yard when your brother-in-law builds you a new garage. Proper credit goes to Matt Richardson, who appears in the video and is an editor at Make Magazine (makezine.com).

If you like the idea of kludging light-up gadgets onto your bike but want to start with something simpler, consider this persistance-of-vision wheel display from Adafruit:
http://learn.adafruit.com/spokepov

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
9 years ago

Pretty cool idea. Its a good way to get noticed but I’m a bit afraid that some people will do the eye/steering wheel drift as they stair to see what the hell is being projected on the ground. Its hard to say if this makes you safer or less safe though

yoyo
yoyo
9 years ago

Can we make it more distracting by projecting forward so I can watch youtube… durrr

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
9 years ago

*stare

pdxfixed
pdxfixed
9 years ago

Raspberry Pi is a computing platform, not an online resource

Calvin
Calvin
9 years ago

please don’t put the magnet on the brake track!

Strmchchr
Strmchchr
9 years ago

Could one not make a video in a continuous loop and run a cable from pre existing cell phone to a bar/rack mounted pocket projecter via necesarry cables and do the exact same thing but way more simple?

chops
chops
9 years ago

It’s not as complicated as it may seem. Simple input/output (speedometer for input, projector for output) and simple coding (when input =X, do output). Raspberry Pi is a full blown, credit card sized computer that hooks up to a monitor and keyboard and can be and used as a smart switch once programmed. The Pi runs on Linux and can be used to make/control many things. Adafruit sells cameras, touch screens, GPS, and other attachments that people use to make their own POV cam, gps, bike computer, etc.

This looks a little strange how the pi is just strapped to the battery without any protective case, but I’m sure that’s next step for this project.

Anonymous
Anonymous
9 years ago

I wouldn’t care about relating speed with the video. That been said…is just about putting a projector on the bike a not the entire complication of the rasberry stuff. Just the smallest projector in the market with a pendrive attached…and your own movies…(deleted)

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