How Can I Track Soap Box Derby Winners?

The All-American Soap Box Derby, held annually in Akron, Ohio, has more than 600 entries. I would like to put each champion’s information into an RFID chip that we would then place into his or her car. As the cars were loaded at the starting gate, data from the vehicles would be sent to the finish-line bridge, and would be displayed on a monitor for the announcer. This information would contain, for example, each champion’s name, city and personal aspirations. The ID chips would have to be cheap, and the reader loops could be placed on the ramp under each car. Can anyone help?

—Name withheld

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This sounds like a fairly straightforward RFID application. I would probably recommend that the data not be stored on a chip, but rather in a database. As the cars are loaded into the starting gate, each car’s tag could be read, and the system would then look up all information associated with that vehicle in the database, displaying it on a monitor for the announcer.

I suggest you contact the Dayton RFID Convergence Center. The experts there can probably put you in touch with a vendor that can supply a solution. You might also want to reach out to RFID Enabled Solutions, located in Dublin, Ohio.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal