Building a Strongman/High Striker with LED's

Hey everyone…brand new to this website and fairly new with LED’s and programming so please bare with me and in advance thank you all so much for your help.

I am building a strongman/high striker for a carnival event. For those who are unaware of what the game is, here is a video I found on youtube with the basic setup (yet slightly different) of what I am trying to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwfpyowPmk

https://youtu.be/JCwfpyowPmk

In the video, he uses proximity sensors to trigger the lights so I have been looking to what type of sensors I would use to control a string of LED’s and have them change color everytime the weight that slides up the track goes past them. Essentially, I want the lights to remain on at all times (perhaps changing colors constantly) and then changing to a different color when triggered by the sensor.

The sensors will be very close to the track (within a few inches).

What type of proximity sensor would you recommend?

What type of LED’s would you recommend (I am looking for 5 different levels to be triggered)?

What type of program would you recommend that would allow this to run without a big computer?

Again, I am a novice when it comes to this stuff, I more specialize in the infrastructure side, but am really excited to learn more from you guys about how to program and build some cool LED projects. Any knowledge/insight is greatly appreciated!

Your best bet is to get an Arduino and some LEDs, resistors, and some basic components. Then learn from the beginning like the rest of us.