Presumably with the project being something to do with a bench, if you did this with a capacitor then it would just stay powered slightly longer than the time someone sat on it...
Anyone noticed that he hasn't sent anything back, do you think he is actually reading what we have put?
Another thought is that can more than 1 of the buttons be depressed at the same time? If they can then the ideas with resistors etc would not work...
Mowcius