Build Your Own LCD Bus Schedule

MikeLRoy writes "An engineering student in Winnipeg, tired of missing his bus to school (and waiting in the cold) created an LCD bus stop. It displays the next bus times for several stops and routes, all from the heated comfort of his kitchen. And yes, there are pics and code on the site."

what??

[xao gypsie]

why, back in my day, we didnt have all these new fangled computer bus scheduler thingies. we had to work out the algorithm in our heads in the snow uphill going both ways....kids these days......

xao

Great idea...

[Cutriss]

I hope he doesn't have class tonight, or else his clock is going to be running a bit slow, thanks to the Slashdotting... :)

Hrm.

[d3kk]

What I'd like to know is why an engineering student is still worried about missing a bus to school..

Eeek. Look at the klenex box.

[rainer_d]

I'm sure he needs more time to look at pr0n, so that's why he actually built the LCD.

This idiot didn't realize there is a bus schedule?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to either 1) looking the routes online, or 2) grabbing the routes from the library? Was this guy just going out to bus stops at random, hoping he got there at the right time? What was so hard about viewing the paper schedule?

And how is he gonna use this thing he made when he's AWAY from home? Come home?

I wish I had thought of that...

[ajuda]

And to think I would have just written down the schedule on a piece of paper (total cost < 1 cent)

Re:what??

[JanusFury]

And the buses didn't have these newfangled 'stops', either! You had to chase them down on foot, jump onto the back, and climb in through the emergency escape hatch on top!

Sing a happy tune....

[Ab0rtRetryFail]

[Singing loudly]
EVERY MORNING I WOULD SEE HER WAITING AT THE STOP!

Sometimes she'd shop and she would show me what she bought!
[/Singing loudly]

AHEM. Sorry... got carried away there. :)

Cold at School?

[__aapbgd5977]

Transfer [asu.edu]. Or better yet, just hang out nearby [azcentral.com].

definetily an engineer

[Anonymous Coward]

"my perl coding abalilities are far from perfect, so..."

Just yur purl coeding abalilities?

Re:Buses?

[IanBevan]

Sorry but i'd rather stay on my own software testing track and have enough $ to buy my own car.
Sure i work for MSFT but at least i can afford to drive a car, take girls out to eat, and go to the casinoes.
Don't mean to be discrimenatorie but it's just how i feel. I'd rather spend time working towards a nice professional job that my kid will look up to than being a grad student (TA) my hole life.

Uh-huh. I can see it now...
"Geeez dad, please don't wear that Microsoft shirt when you pick me up from school. And I think I'll find somebody literate to help with my spelling...."

Re:Eeek. Look at the klenex box.

[xombo]

When I saw that, I knew that somebody would have already commented on that. This is kinda old news, I 've heard of similar things in the past, no links though. That LCD pr0n makes me think of when people made fun of me because I did alot of cool stuff on my TI-85 and saying I was looking at calculator porn :-P

I love your "accidental" misspelling of whole

[BlackTriangle]

Slick.

Re:what??

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Emergency hatches? Why you lucky bastards! Where I grew up, the busses were sealed. If we wanted a ride, we'd have to chase after them, and grab on to a bit of barbed wire tied to the rear bumper, and hold on for dear life as we got dragged to our destination.

Emergency hatches? Feh! No wonder the youth of today are so soft. Why, you probably had all your own limbs all the way up to adulthood! Emergency hatches...

Re:Amazingly

[Threni]

"In central London all the bus stops contain LED displays showihng how long you'll have to wait for each bus"

No; in central london all the bus stops have a number next to each destination/bus, but they aren't minutes - they are just numbers which slowly count down, and disappear as the bus turns up. IE "camden town 6mins" doesn't mean the bus to Camden Town will be 6 mins, it just means that between now and the bus turning up, you`ll see:
camden town 6 mins
camden town 5 mins
camden town 4 mins
camden town 3 mins
camden town 2 mins
camden town 1 min

By my reckoning, each minute is actually 1 min 40 seconds.

Bus type

[NortWind]

So was this LCD display for a serial bus, or parellel?

If you think that's cool...

[dotgod]

A lot of bus companies nowadays have their schedule avaliable in this newfangled fomat called a paper brochure. Not only does it work anywhere, but you don't even need electricity. Additionally, these marvelous contraptions have a more verbose version of the scedule then the LCD bus schedule display.

Re:usefulness?

[mark-t]

Maybe things are different in the USA. I've lived in three Canadian cities so far, and I find that busses are usually very good at being almost exactly on schedule at the route's "timed" points. If the stop you are interested in is between two timed points, then you always make sure to be there by the earlier timed stop's time, but don't expect to leave any sooner than the next timed stop's time. Timed stops aren't too far apart, so you almost never end up waiting too long unless there was some sort of abnormal condition. I've never seen a bus leave a timed stop early, and the sure fire way to get a late bus to come is to light up a cigarette.

Re:what??

[damien_kane]

we had to work out the algorithm in our heads in the snow uphill going both ways...

I remember the times my dad used to tell me this story all the time...
Now I just say 'Shut up, Dad; or I'm putting you in a home'...

Re:Amazingly

[FrostedWheat]

I was traveling south a few months ago, and in Luton I saw this [firestorm.cx].

Had to take a picture :)

Image quality is rubbish, cheap camera.

Re:what??

[Yorrike]

You think you had it hard? Look here sonny, in my day we didn't even have your fancy "buses", never mind having to chase 'em and clinge to barbed wire.

In my day, we had to crawl to and from class, barefoot and glove-less, over pits of rusty blades, broken glass and hot coals. Took a good 17 hours to get to class and by jiminy, we got it if we were late.

Buses with internal combustion engines! The mere thought of such contraptions makes today's youth soft.

Re:why is he on the bus?

[Luke-Jr]

Because he wants to have more attention to his handheld/wearable?

Now if only...

[breon.halling]

... this device could actually make the buses stick to the schedule! =P

Wouldn't It Have Been Cheaper...

[reallocate]

...to tape the bus schedule to the refrigerator door?

I'd be more impressed if he built a robot that poked him with a sharp stick 5 minutes before the bus got there.

Re:I wish I had thought of that...

[mrseigen]

Considering that here in Alberta we don't have that, I don't think it's very likely that any non-Ontario provinces will have it either. I get my bus schedules from taking out my cell phone and calling the number on the bus stop sign, which then tells me that there are x minutes remaining until a bitter public servant crashes his bus into the shelter I'm cowering behind.

Neat idea though.

From the release notes

[nakaduct]

To-Do:
[next release] show when the next bus leaves for "way the fuck out of Winnipeg"

Re:what??

[Anonymous Coward]

You had emergency escape hatches? In my day we had to claw through the roof with our bare hands to get inside--and we didn't even have SEATS!

You had hands?!

Re:what??

[Aquitaine]

Rear bumber? Why, sonny, you don't know how good you had it! Where I grew up, they certainly didn't have those bumber gadgets. You lept in front of that oncoming bus and prayed to high heaven that it was going fast enough to take you where you wanted to go before you slid off the grill.

You probably had all your own ribs all the way up to adulthood! Rear bumbers...

Re:Why he needs it..

[AndroidCat]

These guys are working on a bus-tracking GPS project. [umich.edu]

These guys also have a GPS project: Stalkers now using global positioning satellite devices to track victims [canada.com] (Might make a good Slashdot submission, but I'm just not inspired at the moment.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:And people wonder...

[jamesangel]

Exactly:

Buses are like women; you wait ages for one, miss it and then use a screen which can represent them instead.

Re:Just a tip

[CaseyB]

If you're good with electronics, don't get those LCD displays with built in serial port, they cost a LOT more.

If you're good with chemical engineering and microelectronic fabrication, don't get those prebuilt LCD displays, they cost a LOT more. The raw minerals shouldn't be much more than $0.25.