Keeping Track of How Far You’ve Walked!

Trekking guidebooks often refer to distances between minor landmarks for navigation purposes. This is not a handicap when navigating across countryside that is full of easily distinguished geographical or man-made features. However, when the author was trekking in the more remote locations of the French Pyrenees, estimating the distance walked was difficult and retracing steps became frustrating.

Fido was developed in an effort to look for navigational signs in roughly the expected location. It can record the distance traversed by a walker or runner and was extended to calculate average speed – a useful addition when planning how long it will take to get back to comfort!

A PIC16F84A microcontroller is employed and the unit can be set to work in miles or kilometers.