Date of Award
Spring 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Terms of Use
© 2024 Ben Freeman and Benjamin Wesley. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. For all other uses, please contact the copyright holder.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Engineering Department
First Advisor
Lynne Molter
Abstract
This project represents the culmination of an effort to redesign the timing system for competitive swim meets to record a swimmer’s precise time to the thousandth of a second, eclipsing the current standard competition precision tenfold. This required a redesign of the traditional swimming pool timing system to account for minute variations in the size of the pool and the length of the pool’s lanes. The scope of this project includes designing a system for obtaining precise measurement of the lengths along Swarthmore’s Ware Pool, the use of statistical analysis to determine the conformation of the pool’s lengths to NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) standards, the selection of a detection method capable of recording one thousand measurements per second, and the implementation of this method in conjunction with a system capable of adjustments to account for the variation in pool/lane lengths and race distances. This project was implemented successfully, with results that indicate a precision three times greater than current timing systems, accounting for all possible sources of uncertainty or imprecision. Further suggested work includes the integration of this new system with pre-existing timing equipment at the pool and upgrading the camera system to obtain better resolution, data writing, and capture methods that were not possible with the given budget.
Recommended Citation
Freeman, Ben , '24 and Wesley, Benjamin , '24, "Design & Implementation of a More Precise Competition Timer in Ware Pool" (2024). Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 925.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/theses/925