“Having some Carrera Go slot car racing sets at home I always regarded the included analog lap counters as kind of boring. I wanted to build a better lap counter with more functionality and which makes playing with a Carrera Go racing set feel more like an actual race. For me the included lap counters are missing a basic feature: Tracking the lap time.
The first idea was to use an ESP8266 and to make use of the WIFI capabilities (e.g. displaying lap times and speed on a website and having the possibliltity to make firmeware updates “over the air”). But after a second thought I came to the conclusion that it would also mean more complexitity and that the possiblity of OTA firmware updates would open the door to an never-ending project. I wanted kind of a finished product not an “always-beta” proof of concept. Something that just works and is easy to use, also for children.”