12 button wireless buzzer game - ambitious?

Projects General Guidance
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Hi I'm a teacher .. I teach Esl English to students from the ''ankle biting'' size all the way up to the ''I'm too cool to ...'' size ...Yip ! its as boring as hell! The same lessons year in and year out .. doing my nut in force feeding some education down their necks - time for a change! One where I can save my voice and my sanity!

I have some experience with arduino ... but I'm no master so I'd like some advice pls!

I have search the interwebs and youtube and there are some great solutions but they are never quite what you want!! one will have a great system but no wifi , others will have wifi but limited buzzers.

Firstly I need something reliable and easy to fix (most important) - I'd rather spend more dosh on parts than sit there like the village idiot trying to debug the system while trying to maintain control over 12 X 7 years olds

Secondly I need it wireless -- too many cables become a trip hazaard -- would be funny to see a face plant or 2 -- but then i'll have the parents to contend with!

I need 10- 12 buzzers to make it viable. I have not purchased anything yet, no boards ..not even a battery... so just weighing up my options first!

From what I gathered on youtube etc it seems that GPio pins are the key word --- would it be better to just use a mega 2560 for the master controller ... with 70 available pins ... one creator suggested using a nano with a whole bunch of extenders .... sounds like more programming failure using that route , so I'll leave it open for discussion.

As for communication between the buzzers and the master ... which is better 433MHz RC Transmitter, ESP32 Development Board or nRF24L01 transceiver -- are there any other options? Considerations -- amount juice its pulling (will the juice last an entire 8 hour day with out a recharge?) Will the voltages marry up ? ease of programming ? availablitiy of help/ examples/information on the web.

Not only do I require the normal buttons (reset, continue) but I'd like to have a 7 segment score board for each player that updates as the game progresses with extra buttons to add points (bonus rounds - exceptional answers etc) and deduct points (they talk , pick their noses and you'll always have that class clown). I am considering seperating the buzzer system from the scoring system but thinking I like the idea of it being integrated - any advice would be helpful here!

Would it be better to compartmentalise the entire set up ...or just build it as a whole?

All I know is this ...This is gonna happen or I'll be taking early retirement! My stress levels are being measured with a richter scale currently!

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If I interpret you correctly, you want up to 12 separate units, one per pupil, each with a button and possibly a buzzer. When a user presses their button their buzzer sounds, a message is sent to a master unit which responds by adding to the score for that pupil and displaying it and presumably stops any other button presses being acted on for that round

Is that correct ?

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Draw a picture of the classroom with this system as you imagine it to become. Show the buttons (quantity, arrangement and location) as well as the 7segs. It will be adjusted for reality. Power will be dosh dosh.

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Probably the easiest comms is WiFi to an independent hub.
Using ESP32 - C3 types which are small and have onboard WiFi & LiPo charging facilitities for the handsets. Each with independent specific IP addresses to identify them.

Using nRF24 or 433MHz modules is extra cost and then work in programming + memory.
?
** Edit+** Maybe something like this..

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A hurdle to clear with a wireless approach is how to determine who the winner is. I don't see locking out all the buttons after the first-pressed is necessary. If a network time standard is supplied, a timestamp could be recorded for each Student button press and the Teacher could then poll all the Students to find the winner.

Or MAC address.

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A volume control would be a necessary sanity saver. :grinning_face:

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My suggestion would be to use ESP-NOW which inherently allows the master to identify the client that sent the message. The master could then use the broadcast message facility to stop other slaves from sending a message until it was time to do so

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if this is your key requirement

then this is irrelevant

the button press, the scores, etc will just flow wirelessly, no pin involved.

For a no fuss deployment I would consider an M5Stack Core2 and a capable private wifi router to create a dedicated LAN in the classroom. (the ESP32 Basic Core IoT Development Kit V2.7 is cheaper but the battery is much smaller)

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The screen supports touch (capacitive) so it can be your button and you have a graphical display.

at less than $50 a piece, you get something "finished", with a built in color screen, battery and charge system, wifi, microphone, sound, vibration motor etc... A lot of things to make the end user device fun and is small enough to fit comfortably in the hands of a 7yo

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I second the idea of using ESPs and ESP-NOW protocol. The topics below can bring you some ideas:

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Hope you have a good retirement plan.

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yes ...exactly!

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haha ..yes true ..didnt think of that...

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Those would be awsome but no practical in a classroom situation ... kids break things ... I have gone through 3 samsung tablets in the past few years .... you turn your head for a minute and its become someones frisby ..... (some do it for fun while others take it as a challenge.. some try and prove a point .. tantrums etc ... and others ...well !!!... just don't know how it happened and blame it on their buddies) ... if you wanna know what I'm talking about... think back ... you ever use your compass or some thing sharp to engrave your relationship status into your desk at school?

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infront - a semi circle of desks, occupied by the demons of hell .... behind an array of 7 seg's forming a 3-4 ft score board 1-2 foot wide with names and scores... was thinking of installing car windscreen water nozzles into the desks controlled with push button on my side ... but fear I'd never release the button! so bad idea! but as for the buttons ... need a reset and a continue button... since its English - a button for a correct answer (say 1 point) and another for a correct answer but using a full sentence (say 3 points) ... then having another 2 buttons for either adding or subtracting score! pretty much sums it up! However ..there's more ...lol!! I use incentives when teaching.... like candy or little toys ... I like to be able to save their score after ever class and award it like a currency .. I can run a little shop where by they could use their points earned to buy something ... you know like a pen for 400 points or a Smith and Wesson model 460 for 50 000 points to take home to mommy and daddy ! lol! ... but that can wait till I got the core of the system figured out ...

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we own the school... I'll leave the wife there to run it... she still got some miles left to go on the clock .. I'll go recharge on a beach some where!

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I been reading for hours now since youtube was so limited... saw the ESP-NOW option ...will take a gander as soon as....

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is going to be the problem. Not least because you cannot put names on 7 segment displays

How about using a web page displayed on a large monitor screen

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yes ...I have turned my attention to the esp32 seems to be better than using a nano or uno etc ...agree with you...but that set up looks a bit fragile... roughly 500 kids beating and banging on and spilling drinks on it ...I dont see it lasting a month! it but as for power supply I'm thinking of using the TP4056 ... since i can plug it into a power bank and just leave it there, encase the power bank under the front of the desk in a lockable steel box padded with cermic fibre ( you know the stuff made for kilns --- just incase -- gives sometime time to escape the room )...I could take the out at the end of the day and put them on charge!

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you right! ...Now I'm thinking names can be engrave onto small, thin plastic tags (10 by 4 inches or so ), got a cnc - so should be pretty basic, kept together, by class, in a box , taken out and slotted into a position/ holder before class starts - next to it a 2 bit 7 segment display for the score, need to research that a bit more to find a size to match , holder will be colour coded to buttons on a panel infront of me, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking, it just makes more sense to seperate the scoring function from the gaming function ... all I'll need is a colour coded plus (+) and minus (-) button for each player on a panel ..incrementing 1 point either way ... so if judy is yellow and she gets something right , push the yellow plus (+) button once - visually I will be able to see her buzzer light up yellow without the need to look back at the score board to confirm ... still gonna take up alot of back wall space .... I did consider using a web page before... some can be a bit finicky and not always suited to what you want ... I looked into trying to find online electronic score boards and the majority of them are used for sporting events .. the few i did find were for teams or limited players and the ones that were roughly usable came with a subscriptions ... also trying to fit so much info in such a small amount of space ( even a 52 inch) looks naff ...secondly - if there is a power outage I'm in the dog box. Most of my work is downloaded on my samsung tablet with a seperate battery operated speaker for playing kiddy songs from youtube ... The plan is to have the game visuals on a 52 inch TV using powerpoint ..which I already own ... but incase that goes for a ball... I can always resort to flash cards .. normal teaching practises that I have been using for years.

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