A distributed Elixir / Phoenix application for force scanning: How we built it and what we've learned

Sparta's force scanning software uses a force plate to compute metrics that are used for predicting the risk of injury.

Our scanning application consists of a cloud-hosted Elixir/Phoenix app together with over a hundred laptops around the world, each of which is connected to a force plate, runs its own Phoenix app, and "talks" to the main web application via Channels.

Channels are leveraged extensively to transmit live scan info, force data, and commands in real time. The technical challenges of building and maintaining such a distributed application are described, and there will also be a live demo.

OBJECTIVES

The talk aims to describe Sparta's software architecture at a high level, along with the lessons learned.

TARGET AUDIENCE

People looking for a novel application of Phoenix Channels People interested in sports or wellness Agile development teams transitioning from Rails to Elixir/Phoenix