Greetings,
We’re Delta Racing – the Formula Student Team from the University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim. Alongside building our all-electric race car for this season, we also worked on a little experiment to bring some light into the night.
For the Night Acceleration event at Formula Student Spain, we created a custom lighting system to produce long-exposure light trails during acceleration runs. Using GPS and accelerometer data to track the car’s motion, and a custom 1x20 LED matrix controlled by an RP2040, we were able to “draw” images and text into the night sky – visible only through long-exposure photography.
The PCBs for this project were designed in KiCad and manufactured via Aisler. Their tight integration with KiCad made it super easy to go from schematic to real hardware. And with our tight deadline, we went with the 24-hour manufacturing service – fast, reliable, and shipped straight from Germany. Exactly what we needed to make it in time.
Big shoutout to the Aisler team for making fast, clean prototyping this effortless. Whether it’s race-critical electronics or fun side projects like this, it’s great to know we can rely on you.
