Intelligent Automation

Timestopper History

In 1982, the Stanford Cub Pack No. 57 in Palo Alto, California enlisted the help of a creative engineer, Dr. Barclay Tullis from Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, to figure out a way to conduct its annual Pinewood Derby car races within a single evening.   This was a challenging issue because the Pack at that time had grown to over 70 cubs.

Fortunately, Dr. Tullis had already prototyped a one-lane timer in 1976, base on the then new Intel 8080 microprocessor.   What he delivered was the first Timestopper Pinewood Derby timer for a three-lane track; it used one photosensor to sense the opening of the start gate at the starting line, and three photosensors to sense the crossing of cars at the finishline.   It recorded the approximately three-second race time on each track to within one one-thousandths of a second.   His simple solution allowed the parents to conduct the race in a couple of hours rather than late into the evening or on to the next day.   Each cub's car was placed in three heats, allowing each car to experience the conditions on each of the three lanes, and using the average of those three times per car as the measure of race performance.

So each cub had the excitement of racing three times, each time against two other competitors, but in fact against all competitors since the performance times were absolute numbers. With 70 cubs, this required approximately 72 races, with three cubs per race. Since 70 was not evenly divisible by three (the number of lanes on the track), a couple of cubs got to race their cars an extra time, but off-the-record. The total time required, at approximately 2 minutes allowed per heat, took approximately two and a half hours to handle all 70 cars, a record time in itself compared to whittling down the contestants by heats which only determine a first, second, and third place per run. All of the cubs and parents went home that evening satisfied and testifying to a harmonious and exciting event. The Pack sent Dr. Tullis letters of gratitude and thanks which he enjoys to this day. It wasn't long until neighboring Packs were borrowing the timer from the Stanford Pack.

Out of that experience came the motivation to build the company, Intelligent Automation Company, that has been making and selling "Timestoppers" for well over 20 years. Their market consists not only of large Packs but in fact any smaller Pack, troop, den, parent, or cub who wants to reduce Pinewood Derby event duration's, add scientific measurements to the derby experience, get a head-start precisely testing car-design techniques, and/or tune a car's performance. Their product line includes multi-lane timers, single-lane timers, and multilane place-finish sensors.