AthleticsOne

How it fits together

AthleticsOne, part by part

Scroll or tap a part. Press “See the 3D CAD design” to watch the model, built from our CAD, light each part up and show how it connects.

See the 3D CAD designShow the concept

Real-time 3D render · drag to rotate · final design may varySwipe sideways to rotate

1. 01

   The whole AthleticsOne

   Two smart finish posts are their own finish judge. Rev T: one board of our own runs up each post, with no plugs.

2. 02Brain

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post

   The brain: it runs the athleticsone-posts program

3. 03

   Camera head and processor

   OV9281 camera chip behind the window; RV1126B makes the finish calls

   RV1126B on the same board · the board's own camera flex · Crossings, lanes, laps, strip

4. 04

   Heat, lightning and gun

   Air chip, lightning chip and gun mic on the home board

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · I²C, SPI and PDM · Air °C, strikes, gun time

5. 05

   Call lamp and tone

   Eight lamp LEDs and a sounder inside the post

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · LED data line, PWM pin · Call colours and tones

6. 06

   Security chip and tamper

   Signs every result; tamper switch marks the log

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · I²C and one input pin · Signatures, tamper events

7. 07

   LTE-M, Wi-Fi, tap reader

   LTE-M modem, Wi-Fi and NFC reader behind the radio window

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · UART, SDIO, I²C on board · Results out, taps in

8. 08

   Starter unit board

   Its own small board: ESP32-S3, mic and flash diode; sends one start

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · ESP-NOW radio · Start time, race, hold

9. 

   09

   Cells and battery system

   Four 18650 cells; charger, protection and gauge on the board

   Our finish-post board: the always-on ESP32-S3 in the home post · cell strips soldered on · Power, charge state

10. 10

    All connected

    8 key parts, one program, and your phone

Our circuit board · rev A-0

One board of our own inside AthleticsOne

Every chip on one board we design, shaped to fit: the processor, cameras and sensors, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, lights, sound and power. No plugs, ribbons or adapters. It is checked in our CAD against every part around it, and it arrives from the maker ready to run our software from a microSD card. Turn the model, or pick a part below to see where it sits.

Demo · 6 real-world moments

See AthleticsOne work

Short animated scenes of real moments: what happens today, what AthleticsOne does about it, and what lands on your phone. The same scenes play in the IEMI app.

Demo scenes show how AthleticsOne and its app are designed to behave. AthleticsOne is in design; nothing here is recorded from real equipment yet.

The idea

The two finish posts are their own finish judge: every place and time from one start, called on the posts and signed, plus the heat band and the lightning clock all season

How the parts connect

AthleticsOne, wired up

Every part, what links it to the brain, and how the data reaches your phone. A solid line is a cable; a dashed line is a radio link.

The program

What controls AthleticsOne

for (;;) {
    if (minute_tick()) { s = read_heat(); band = band_for(wbgt_est(&s), ruleset); }  // SHT45 + MAX31865 chips on the board
    if (as3935_irq() && strike_km() <= 16) { clock_restart(30 * 60); espnow_send(STARTER, HOLD); }
    evt_t e;
    if (espnow_pop(&e) && e.kind == START) { rv1126b_wake(); race_arm(e.t); }  // starter unit
    else if (race_waiting() && gun_heard(&e)) race_arm(e.t - dist_m() / c_air(s.t)); // home post mic
    cross_t c;
    while (rv_uart_pop(&c) || espnow_cross_pop(&c)) race_cross(&c);            // RV1126B + away post
    if (race_done()) {
        result_t r = race_result();                    // places, times, lanes, laps
        if (r.conf < CONF_MIN) r.call = UNSURE;        // never guess: strip to the coach
        atecc_sign(&r); log_append(&r);                // signed, append-only
        call_show(&r);                                 // lamps + tone on both posts
        walter_mqtt_publish("a1/dev/result", pack(&r));
    }
    if (bell_lap_due()) call_bell();
    if (tamper_open()) log_tamper();
    if ((tag = pn532_poll())) roll_tap(tag);
    vTaskDelay(pdMS_TO_TICKS(10));
}

To your phone

How the data reaches AthleticsOne app

Coach, athletic trainer, athletic director and meet referee phone or laptop browser

1. Starter unit and away post
2. ESP-NOW radio
3. Home post
4. LTE-M · MQTT/TLS
5. Cloud
6. Web app, push and SMS
7. Coach, AD and referee phone

Key specs

Targets for production units; they may change during development.

Pricing

Target pricing. Bought separately, a FieldFlag station ($699), StrikeClock ($199), RollCall ($149), sideline display ($449), GroundCheck kit ($349), GalaTime ($599), MeetTime Kit ($499) and a SplitPole Squad Kit ($649) add up to $3,592 + $299/yr, plus about $795 for plain finish posts. Parts cost about $648 a pair at qty 1 (shop prices checked 28 Oct 2026); cost about $980 a pair at qty 1 and $670 at qty 100, margin about 53-68 % (est.).

Indicative launch pricing in USD, excluding taxes and shipping. Final pricing is confirmed before any balance is charged.

1. 3 Nov 2026, 21:12LatestA buyer reading the AthleticsOne page should see the finish posts as they will be sold: one board of our own up each post. Until now the 3D view, the parts list and the wiring still lit the bench parts (a Pi Zero, a camera module, a Walter board and eight breakout boards), so the page showed a prototype, not the product.

   • What we designed: AthleticsOne rev T, the finish posts with our board inside, done the way CricketOne rev T put its board in the stump. The bench electronics come out of both posts and the starter unit; the folded board goes in: base section and battery system in the steel base, riser flex up into the post, the RV1126B brain on the track-face wall, the radio section with the always-on ESP32-S3 behind the radio window, the OV9281 camera head behind the camera window, the heat chips under the black top and the gun-mic tab on the start-side wall (home post only). The away post carries the same board without its 14 home-only parts. The starter unit gets its own small board on its floor. The Wiring and Program sections now name our board: the ESP32-S3 runs the always-on jobs and wakes the RV1126B on the same board for each race. See /products/athleticsone/ and /build/athleticsone-boards
   • How we checked it: every board part was checked against every wall and every bought part that stays (four 18650 cells, the starter cell). Two real fixes came out: the home base top needed a sealed hole for the two dock pins that charge the starter unit, and the starter shell floor a hole for its spring pins; the starter cell moves up onto a foam pad over its board. After that nothing touches, the assembly check finds no problems, and every wiring part lights its chip in the 3D view. All seven boards were re-run in the same pass: 0 placement problems, every design review 0 fail, KiCad design-rule checks 0, packs rebuilt. No new CricketOne board decisions since the last update, so no new shared rules this time
   • What we learned: a board drawn for a viewer and a board placed in CAD turn the same angles in a different order; the CAD script now applies the viewer's order, so a part shown lying flat is checked lying flat. Sloped flex runs are listed in 2 mm slices so the fit check follows the slope
   • What is next: the same step for RacketOne, CellOne, RoomOne and DampOne: board in the product CAD and the Wiring and Program sections on our own board

   See it in 3DFull research and design

2. 3 Nov 2026, 19:05A school or club buys the finish posts as one pair to stand out at every meet and every training session, so each post must be one board an assembly house makes and tests the same way, with nothing plugged together inside a 16 mm deep post that is carried, knocked and left in the sun.

   • What we designed: one rigid-flex board up each finish post. A flat base section in the steel base holds the charger, protection, gauge, the screw-locked charge socket, the tamper switch and the dock pins. A spine runs up the post: the RV1126B brain pressed on the aluminium track face for cooling, a radio section behind the radio window (the always-on ESP32-S3, and on the home post the LTE-M modem, lightning chip and an NFC loop drawn in the board copper), the call lamp and tone on the track face, the global-shutter camera chip on a head tilted 10 degrees down at its window, and the air and black-top heat chips under the cap. The starter unit gets a small board of its own. It replaces the Walter, the Pi Zero, the camera ribbon, the PowerBoost and six breakout boards. See /build/athleticsone-boards
   • How we checked it: the board is written as code and opened in KiCad (0 design-rule violations). It places 71 parts at their datasheet sizes and checks that each fits its section and the 16 mm post depth, nothing overlaps, the camera, lamp, tone, vent, gun mic and dock parts sit on their places in the post design, every antenna faces the radio window, the processor sits on solid wall, and every flex is long enough. All checks pass. A 3D model shows the board folded in a see-through post or laid flat
   • What we learned: the narrow post decides the board. Every section stands on edge, so each side has only 2 to 13 mm of room, and the processor must give its heat to the track face, the only solid metal close enough. The NFC loop needs a thin ferrite sheet behind it, or the aluminium wall 6 mm away detunes it
   • What is next: the M8 charge socket and dock pins from one maker's drawings, the NFC and radio range through the window on a test post, and the next product's board, RacketOne

   See it in 3DFull research and design

3. 29 Oct 2026, 19:36High school meets treat a clock started by the sound of the gun as hand timing, not fully automatic timing, and add 0.24 s to compare it (IHSA bulletin; WIAA, quoting the NFHS rules book). NFHS Rule 3-9-6 lets a meet break ties at 0.001 s. The 2026 World Athletics and 2027 NFHS rule changes do not touch the finish or the start (World Athletics, NFHS).

   • Market and rules check (DESIGN.md): the World Athletics 2026 rules and amendments, World Masters Athletics 2026, the four NFHS 2027 changes and the high school timing rules, each with what it changes in AthleticsOne
   • Times: every time now shows how the race was started (starter unit seeing the flash, or the gun heard at the post) and is never labelled fully automatic; the app can add the state's hand-time conversion in a separate column (equipment.json)
   • Ties: the posts read to 0.01 s, so a tie closer than that stays a dead heat for the referee or a certified system (NFHS 3-9-6); two new rule lines in equipment.json
   • Competitors: new phone photo-finish apps (SprintLens, June 2026; Photo Finish: Automatic Timing, free with a Pro plan) are good for training but sign nothing and do no heat or lightning jobs; FinishLynx Scholastic is still about $5,375 to $5,699 for championship meets. Price kept at $2,090 a pair + $299/yr
   • Product page https://iemilabs.com/products/athleticsone/ gains a high school seeding FAQ and the timing line in its specs
   • Next: ask state associations in phase 3 whether a wired start cable from an electronic starting gun would let the times count for seeding; close-out C9 (recommend the first product to the owner) from 30 Oct 00:00

   See it in 3DFull research and design

4. 29 Oct 2026, 07:22Before customer reviews, every design in the line must pass our own checks: no missing or wrong parts, no part drawn floating in the 3D model, and every part size on a flagship taken from its datasheet. This is close-out task C4 in our phase 1 plan.

   • New section "Quality pass" in products/LINE-REVIEW.md: design checks, 3D assembly checks and the site build run across all 127 designs and 1,071 parts
   • Result: 0 errors and 0 warnings; all 24 flagships pass the 3D assembly check with no floating parts
   • Fixed six floating parts on older designs: the referee band in FieldSide now rests on the forearm, HeatFlag now shows the clamp sets and rubber pad that hold its sensor arm and battery box to the mast, and the LineCell and QualityCheck AI ring lights now show the two standoffs they hang on
   • The SchoolMeet backup stopwatch and the VapeSense AI smoke-test hood are hand-held, so they are now marked that way with the reason instead of being drawn as if fixed
   • Our checks are now stricter: from today a flagship part size without a datasheet fails the check instead of only warning
   • Next: close-out C5, buyer review preparation for the sports products: who to ask, three open questions each and a five-question survey

   See it in 3DFull research and design

5. 28 Oct 2026, 20:20A school track needs places and times called fairly at PE lessons, practice and school meets when officials are short: it already buys finish posts (from $795.50, UCS), entry photo-finish now costs $5,699 (FinishLynx price sheet, Dec 2025), and Ohio's 2026 state tournament grew to five divisions that each need a full crew of officials (MileSplit Ohio).

   • Buyer check with sources: what schools pay for plain finish posts, timing systems, officials and weather services today, and the three closest products (phone photo-finish apps, FinishLynx Scholastic, Perry Weather)
   • New competitor learned: a phone photo-finish app (SprintTimer) times a race for about $5, which shows schools will time with what they have; our posts stand on the line already, see both sides, call places with no person on the line, sign results and also run the heat band and lightning clock
   • Market price updated: the entry FinishLynx package is now $5,699 on the maker's December 2025 price sheet, not under $5,000
   • Parts list prices checked on shop pages today: $648 of parts per pair at qty 1; cost and margin table in the design notes (about 53 % at qty 1 and 68 % at qty 100, est.), price kept at $2,090 a pair + $299 a year
   • Power corrected: in a race the home post stays awake to hear the gun and merge both posts, so it draws about 2.8 W and lasts about 15 hours of race time per charge, not 18
   • Product page: the first three FAQs answer the buyer's top questions (no officials, cost and why not a phone app, sanctioned meets and records), and the specs add the run time

   See it in 3DFull research and design

6. 28 Oct 2026, 04:40School meets and PE lessons often run short of officials: a high school meet can need 30 to 50 officials, and one US state association had about 165 certified officials for the whole state (USATF Florida). Coaches ask parents to time and record (iBerkshires), and in PE lessons and training there are no officials at all. World Athletics decides places by the torso at the finish line and puts the finish camera in the line's extension, exactly where finish posts stand.

   • Rev O: the finish posts are their own finish judge. They call places and dead heats, times, finishers, the bell lap and the lightning start hold alone in school and club play; lanes at the line are evidence for the coach; below a stated confidence they say unsure and keep the strip
   • Each post: a call tone, a secure element that signs every result, and a tamper switch under the bolted base plate; each finish camera mounted 10 degrees down
   • Home post: a gun mic, so a race is timed from any gun, clapper or whistle with no starter unit (corrected for distance and air temperature, about ± 0.03 s, est.)
   • equipment.json: nothing added to the track, 6 calls, 4 impact cases (athlete into the post, topple onto the track, spike or baton on a window, weather) and every security key
   • App: new "No official" race mode and finish calls screens; idea plan, product page, BOM and buy list updated; $2,090 a pair vs $3,592 for our products separately plus about $795 for plain posts
   • CAD review: 28 Oct 2026, 26 camera view checks, all sizes from datasheets, no floating parts, no collisions
   • Gaps listed: false starts (they need sensors in every block), lane infringement away from the finish, lapped runners hidden in a pack

   See it in 3DFull research and design

7. 28 Oct 2026, 01:00A school track already owns one piece of finish-line equipment: a pair of finish posts, 80 x 20 mm on flat bases (Mondo removable winning posts; UCS posts from $795.50, https://morleyathletic.com/collections/track-finish-line-posts). World Athletics puts the finish camera in the extension of the finish line, exactly where those posts stand, and asks that no finish equipment be an obstacle (Technical Rules, https://sports.rainbowschools.ca/pages/watrackrules21.pdf). The product must be those posts, the same size, with every part inside.

   • Redesigned AthleticsOne (rev S) as smart finish posts drawn in code CAD: two 80 x 20 mm aluminium posts, 1.4 m tall, on 400 x 250 mm bases, 1 m inside lane 1 and 1 m outside lane 8 on the finish line's extension; the script checks that nothing sticks out of the 80 x 20 profile above the base
   • Inside each post: a camera looking along the line at 100 frames a second with its own small computer, a band lamp, and four cells in the base. Inside the home post: the one brain with its mobile link, the lightning sensor, the air and black-top heat sensors and the wristband tap reader
   • The starter unit is the one detachable part: it goes to the start line, hears the gun or sees its flash, starts both posts, and docks on the home post's base. Removed the fence-post station, sideline digits, stop buttons, finish poles, wet-spot pucks, cover tags and rain gauge; pool touch timing (now phone stop buttons), wet-field readings and the wind gauge are listed gaps with the reason
   • CAD review: every bought part sized from its datasheet or maker page, both posts standing on the finish line of an 8-lane track with the starter unit docked, no collisions, no floating parts. Price $1,990 a pair + $299/yr against $3,592 + $299/yr for our products separately plus about $795 for plain posts. Next: the redesign table is done, so the next runs make each sports flagship its own official (rev O), starting with CricketOne; see https://iemilabs.com/products/athleticsone/

   See it in 3DFull research and design

8. 28 Oct 2026, 01:00One school athletics product, as the smart finish posts themselves.

   • Still part of AthleticsOne, now redesigned as smart finish posts: https://iemilabs.com/products/athleticsone/

   See it in 3DFull research and design

Smart equipment · legal on the field

AthleticsOne is the finish posts (winning posts), made smart

It replaces the removable finish posts a school or club track already has (for example Mondo removable winning posts, 80 x 20 mm steel profile on a metal base, set of two; UCS finish line posts from $795.50), with every part built in. Everything is inside the two posts and their bases: the finish camera and its Pi Zero 2 W in each post, the brain, lightning sensor, air and black-top heat sensors and tap reader in the home post, the cells in the bases. Same 80 x 20 profile and same place as plain winning posts. Home post about 3.2 kg of aluminium (from the CAD) plus a steel base about 3 kg (est.) and 0.45 kg of electronics (est.).