A Physicist Rigged His Pet Hamster’s Wheel to Upload to Strava

In a delightful display of ingenuity, a Dutch physicist named Thijs de Buck rigged his pet hamster's wheel to upload its activity directly to Strava. His hamster, Mollie, has become a running sensation, regularly logging an average of 10 kilometers every night. This impressive feat vastly outperforms many human runners, with Mollie achieving a personal best of 11.15 kilometers. De Buck's setup involves an ESP32 microcontroller and a hall sensor, detecting each 65-centimeter rotation of the wheel and relaying the data for conversion into a .FIT file and subsequent Strava upload. Mollie’s Strava account garners around a thousand 'kudos' (Strava's equivalent of likes) per run, significantly more than the roughly 40 kudos De Buck typically receives for his own marathon training efforts, highlighting Mollie’s unexpected stardom in the running community.