A cool little data acquisition system for track days/autocrosses/hill climbs

clintonracing

something witty
I just wanted to post up this cool affordable data acquisition system for Google Android phones. Trackmaster.

Jeff (the app writer) is a local NW car enthusiast. He has been running an STi with SCCA Track Trials for the past several years. So he has a great understanding of what us racers and lappers are looking for in a data acquisition system. And at the price, $5 it can't be beat!! :eek:

We used this system last weekend in Portland and we'll be using it for a long time to come! It recorded our laps with .05 seconds/lap of the official AMB system.

To set split markers and start/finish, just pull up Google Earth. Find the track or hill climb. Set placemarkers. Then email the file to your phone.

For autocrosses there is a "locate" function within Trackmaster that will allow you place a split marker at your exact location as you do your course walk.
 
Tom,

If I read the Apexspeed post correctly, iPhone will have the lap times using GPS, and accelerometers (2 axis) in a new phone they are coming out with.
 
Last edited:
Alright, so I thought I would post up a more formal review of Trackmaster.

My overall opinion is that this really can't be beat for the dollars! Like I said a little earlier, it was within .05 sec/lap. Which was about as accurate as when I was running MaxQdata last year. Only this app (if you are setup with the phone, car mount, etc) costs next to nothing compared to the other systems. Even after investing in the car charger and car mount, it is still much less expensive. Bang for the buck, it's awesome!

Setting split markers and a start/finish marker was very simple. Following the instructions via Trackmaster's website made it very straight forward. I thought I would do a quick walkthrough of the process though for track day timing.
- Open Google Earth from your PC.
- Locate the track you will be running.
- Add a folder for the track under "my places"
- Then right click on your new folder and add -> placemark
- This will throw a thumbtack up on the screen. You can drag it to precisely where you want the point
- Be careful, you need to set the placemarks in the order in which you intend to pass through them. This may cause some issues on multiple configuration tracks. You'll have to set the placemarks for each configuration and driving direction.
- Once all the placemarks are set, right click your folder and "save place as".
- Next email the *.kmz file to yourself (whatever email you have linked to your phone).
- When you open the attachment on your phone; Trackmaster should automatically recognize it and ask if you want to import it.

When you are ready to use Trackmaster for to time your laps, just select the "split marker" set (track configuration) that you are about to run. One tricky thing that caught me up a little was getting the logger to recognize what split marker set I wanted to use.
-Select "split markers"
-Once it is open, select "edit"
-Select the check box at the top "Select this split marker set for data logging"
-Scroll to the bottom and select ok

One other thing that tripped me up a little was to make sure I forwarded all incoming calls while you are on the track. An incoming call that is not forwarded will disrupt the logger.

Someone mentioned also that the accelerometer in the G1 was a little slow. The screen display may seem a little slow, but the the accuracy of the lap timer is great.

A requirement that wasn't necessarily easy to identify was that you also need a "Text To Speech" application in order to have Trackmaster speak your lap times. It was a free app, and wasn't a big deal to setup.

Everything else about the app is pretty straight forward. You can setup your own personal profile, setup stats about your car(s), email your session data, review your session data via your phone (or google earth or Xcel), tweet your laps times to anyone following you on twitter, and a bunch of other cool things.

One other neat thing that the app will do is allow you to record/analyze autocross or hillclimb runs. Setting up autocross split markers is a little bit a different process. I have played with how it is done, but I have not run an autocross with it yet.

Essentially you would set place markers via your phone during your course walk. To do this you would create a new split marker set. Then as you are walking the course, select the "locate" function. This will zero in where you are right then and you set the placemark. A couple of notes about using the locate function. I have found that you need to be zoomed in on your location to set the place marker accurately, the more you zoom, the more accurate the locate will be. Also, I noticed that you need to "locate" a few times (3 or 4) to make sure that the GPS has found you precisely. Each time you select locate, the crosshairs will move a bit. The more times you select locate, each time the variation will decrease. Once it looks like the location is not jumping around, I added the placemark.

Here is some sample data from our race last weekend. If it doesn't work let me know. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Saturday Qualifying - 2009 Chicane Challenge @ PIR - Group 7 - Google Earth Data

Saturday Qualifying - 2009 Chicane Challenge @ PIR - Group 7 - Xcel Data

Sunday Qualifying - 2009 Chicane Challenge @ PIR - Group 4 - Google Earth Data

Sunday Qualifying - 2009 Chicane Challenge @ PIR - Group 4 - Xcel Data
 
I've played around with Trackmaster and it seems pretty cool. I'm going to use it at the Pacific Kart track tomorrow, will report back with results.
 
I understood everything you said before "Alright".

I assume this does not work on any other phone?

Kyle

:) My bad.

It is for any of the Google Android phones - Right now I believe there is only one phone that is on the market (The HTC G1 for T-Mobile). The G2 is supposed to be out fairly soon (I don't know exactly when), and AT&T is also going to have an Android phone out in the next few months (probably Christmas time).
 
:p I am an Okie so simple words work wonders for me.

Heard anything about Verizon doing this too? I saw the spreadsheet and that is excellent info!

Kyle
 
Back
Top