Sacman:
Lots of cool ideas! I have been working extensively on a project to use with airsoft over the last couple of months. I'll share details as I get closer to done.
sweet dealWith the 4D Display systems, they have what they call a Graphics controller on board. It appears to be basically a micro controller of some sort and it handles the program similar to the Arduino. You can use the same display in two different ways depending on the firmware that you install. Either serially or stand alone. In serial mode (what they call SGC mode), all of the work is handled by the Arduino and you simply send it commands to tell it what to do. In stand alone (what they call GFX mode) you do have to use their IDE to write the program which is sent to the display's onboard controller. The SD card is used exclusively for data storage like images, music or data. They have their own software which will setup the SD card for you so it is fairly intuitive. They can play video at about 12-15 Frames per second.
good to know. I think,though, before upping the screen size and capability I'm gonna try for getting the wireless between the gun and the arduino working. Since they dont have any of those screens in stock, and though xbee modules can be kinda big, shouldnt be too much trouble to work one into some part of the gun without getting in the way (I figure I'll get and arduino FIO to be the onboard gun controller for my first prototype of wireless)The 4D IDE is also C based and while different is not too hard to learn. I have two of their displays the 1.4 and 2.4 w/touch and love them but for any kind of volume production they are a bit expensive. I am probably going to be buying a 4.3 w/capacitve touch ($250) soon for use on another part of the project I am working on.
For the wireless options, for your guns to the display, bluetooth would work but you would have to go with a different option to talk to teamates as you've already noted. So instead of using two different components, stick with one for both. One of the challenges of the Xbees is their size. They are extremely user friendly but they are also huge. I recently came across Anaren's Air modules which utilize the Texas Instruments CC1101 chip and these things are TINY!. 12mm x 6mm. But they are surface mount so a little more work to use them. They can also be had for $12.50 as compared to an XBee at $23. The CC1101 operates in the 433,868,or 915 MHZ band instead of 2.4GHZ. I chose 915 because it is less crowded and has less chance of interference. They might be a little more challenging to setup but they are not too intimidating plus I think they are smarter than the Xbee and once setup they are easier to use since they handle preamble, packetization and checksum for you unlike the Xbee where it has to be done by the Arduino to a large degree if you want to send data in a point to multipoint setup.
interesting, that is in fact pretty small. I wonder about their range though, I know some of the Xbee stuff (for between players) can get up to 1-2miles with clear LOS (So maybe a quarter of a mile or so in the woods). These smaller ones are pretty nifty though, 3.6v max though. So fir the data IO on it would that mean I need to cut the power coming from the arduino pin a bit so as to not damage it?
For GPS, talk about expensive. I have struggled with this in the past because it has so many cool options. Especially when tied to an iPhone or iPad since they have a built in MAPKit in their IDE. I bought a Mac Mini just so I could write programs for the iPhone. The cheapest GPS module I have been able to locate was through Mouser and I keep thinking that it is a fluke and eventually the price is going to jump. In fact it has gone up $6.00 since the last time I looked about 2 months ago http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Fastrax/UP501/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMv%2FbGM7XKYHK5cWKPdkcWhM but this same module on Sparkfun goes for $49.95.
yeah I'm gonna write GPS off as a project for later this summer, after i have guns talking and peoples gear talking spreading gun info. From there it shouldnt be too hard to get the units to communicate GPS info since the network will already be in place.I think where you are going with all of this is awesome and there is no better way to learn all the ins and outs of programming than having an ambitious project to work on that will challenge you to learn more and more as it grows.
And yeah, if your not being ambitions then whats the point. Theres no fun in it if you aren't trying to do something that they haven't done before (though the military probably has something like this already in place to share GPS data, but well, who doesn't want their airsoft team to have paramilitary tech.
Actually that kinda leads me to a side project that kinda might support this. So say I get a bunch of this stuff working. Then here we are playing a match spread otu over a large area. An area we know is too big for the wifi gear we all have with us to transmit.
Now I know that there are wifi bridges you can get for houses and office buildings. Plug them into a wall outlet, and they act as a repeter for teh wifi so you can use it from farther away. I wonder what it would take to build a repeter like that. Just a little box that you could carry (all its got in it is a controller and a wifi module, and maybe a GPS to help you find it later after the game is over). And by take to build it, what kind of stuff would need to be coded. just have it take in signals and put them immediately back out?
edit. Goes and reads a bit about it.
Wow it practically is that simple to make a repeater. Perhaps add in some micro SD to it then and log players positions and other info just so you can go over what happened during the game later on.