When it comes to measuring speed with pinpoint accuracy, this laser is idea.

At school the Year 9 and 10 metalwork classes were making CO² racers, but to be able to judge the fastest we needed an accurate timing device to record the time - as they cover a distance of 50 metres in around a second! There are commercial devices available that meet these needs, but they cost in excess of $700, obviously well out of a school's budget.

I met a lot of challenges in the process of making this device. At times it seemed like nothing was going the way it should! I had to master a lot of new skills too like SMT soldering, PCB creation and advanced AVR C coding.