Open Monitor for OpenErg

[Lucas Ferreira Mation]

Hi Guys, 

What a great project!

Is it still active in terms of development and user base?

I''m involved in the open erg project (openergo.webs.com), which provides open source designs to construct a cheap but well functioning erg. 

We are thinking/dreaming about a Android-Apss to use as the monitor for the open-erg. It will be a great interface between the two projects, perhaps a "erg module" to talos rowing?

 I'm not a programmer or app developer, so we are seeking help to develop the app, or just ideas to discuss about the project.

Let me describe the idea so far: 

1) One external sensor to measure the rotation of erg flywheel. Ideally this would be done using a reed switch connected to a small, simple and cheap circuit that could send the signal to the Phone without the need for a dedicated circuit board. The idea is discussed in more detail   here and here.

One of the ideas is sending the signal thrugh the headphone jack of the phone. If we find a solution for this, we could perhaps use a second sensor (sending data as a difference signal  for the computer to process) and use it to measure the stroke rate. 

2) Assuming we can get a precise estimate of the rotational speed, into the computer, the app would process the data to estimate the power output of the rower and and display other statistics like the 500m split, etc. 

I don´t know what formula could be used to go from  power output profile to slipits. Or about how to develop an App. 

any cooperation or suggestions are very welome. 

regards

Lucas Mation