The Skellefteå triangle

The port, the airport and the new travel centre: the Skellefteå triangle. Electric flights, drones, a new railway.

We could have made a joystick. We bolted an old tandem to a smart trainer instead. One person can play. Two people can play a lot better.

1. The tandem’s rear wheel sits in a Wahoo KICKR CORE smart trainer.
2. The trainer broadcasts speed, power and flywheel speed over ANT+ radio.
3. A Raspberry Pi with an ANT+ stick listens, and sends the numbers to the Unreal Engine game over OSC.
4. The room joins in over MQTT: the mobility light pulses green, and a bird sings in the room’s mobility corner.

• The trainer only sends power while something controls it, so the Pi gently sets zero resistance every ten seconds. The pedals feel the same. The data keeps flowing.
• The trainer’s power reading never drops to zero, so “is anyone pedalling?” is judged from the flywheel instead.
• When the radio stick locks up, it heals itself in steps: reset the USB, restart the program, reboot the Pi.
• If the bike’s Pi goes quiet, a server takes over with a demo ride around 18 km/h, and hands back when it returns.