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Lazer Blazer

The current BatBlaster is extremely successful, being used in competitions worldwide by thousands of waterskiers. It is simple in concept, fits a range of boats, does not require expensive equipment on a per-skier basis and most importantly has proven itself in the field.

It does, however, have a number of limitations:

• The measured point is to the end of the line not the skiers ski.
• There is not allowance for the bowing of the tow line due to windage.
• There can be some degree of sticking at of the end of each arc.

The intent of the current development is to produce an equally reliably product, which resolves the above issues, at not significantly higher cost (preferably less), and with equal (or greater) reliability.

A prototype has been constructed which uses a rotating infra-red light transmitter mounted in the boat and a light detector strapped to the skier's leg. The skier's position relative to the boat can be calculated using the time of arrival of the received light pulses.

This is a picture of the Lazer Blazer prototype. You can see a black heatsink at the top, which helps to dissipate heat from the infra-red transmitter. This is mounted on top of a long thin-walled aluminium tube (courtesy of a 99p Superdrug Hair Mousse can!) which contains lenses to focus the beam. At the bottom is an aluminium mounting that contains a rotating mirror and lens assembly (motor recycled from an HP laser printer). This results in a thin vertical beam that makes about 30 horizontal scans per second.

Download this PDF document for more details of the design of Lazer Blazer: Lazer Blazer Design (0.3)