iCycle to provide live coverage for both Little 5 races

Team iCycle isn’t racing in Little 500. They’re transforming it.

iCycle is a senior informatics capstone project that uses radio frequency identification, or RFID, technology during the Little 500 races to display a live leaderboard with team statistics on its website.

During the races, riders will be able to access the iCycle website to instantaneously check their lap times and overall performance, iCycle team member Mitch Spicer said.

Three small RFID tags will be placed on each rider’s helmet on race day. The tags will transmit a signal to the four receiver antennas tied to the starting pole. The receivers will then communicate riders’ times live to the iCycle website during the race.

Riders will be able to view more accurate data about their lap times and overall performance during the race, instead relying on stopwatches, Spicer said.

“iCycle is a resource that will give more accurate information about the rides,” Spicer said. “There will still be the person there with a stopwatch timing it, but this is just another way to have even more accurate data so that riders can track their progress and make improvements for the future.”

The iCycle project was launched in 2006 by informatics students and has improved each year, Spicer said.

In 2010, the live-streaming website was introduced, but there were several technical glitches and it wasn’t working properly during the race.

This year, they made the website more user-friendly, ensuring it will stream successfully, Spicer said.

Josh LaMar was part of the iCycle team as a senior in 2010 and returned to campus to consult with this year’s team and to help it with the technology.

“I was excited to see the team’s ideas for a site redesign that made the information being displayed much more useful,” Lamar said. “Each year we are learning more and more about the potential RFID technology can offer, and I’m very excited for this year’s iCycle project.”

For live-streaming coverage of the men’s and women’s races, visit icycle.informatics.indiana.edu.