This teaching aid demonstrates ATON light characteristics in the classroom.  It sports three colored lamps (Red, Green and White) that can be programmed to simulate any Aid to Navigation (ATON).  A small LCD text display mounted at the base of the model lighthouse announces the name of the ATON being portrayed and its light characteristic.  A push button scrolls to the next available ATON.  This simulator is used to demonstrate ATONS found on the Training Chart 1210TR during maritime navigation courses.

The Point Confusion light is built around a small computer chip called the "Basic Stamp 2" (BS2), made by Parallax,Inc.

Short programs containing the desired ATON light characteristics are first written on a standard PC using an abbreviated version of the BASIC computer language. Compiled versions of these programs are then downloaded to the Stamp via the PC's serial port.  Nonvolatile memory aboard the BS2 allows the ATON simulator to run in a standalone mode.  Discrete solid state relays allow the Stamp to control 7 watt, 117 vac lamps for display.

Although the software is far from optimized, several dozen ATON characteristics can be stored in the available BS2 memory.

Anyone interested in collaborating on this project, or examining a draft version of the code, is invited to contact the author.

Alan Rice
Alan ,at, Alice ,dot, Caltech ,dot, Edu