OMG IT WORKS!! Thank you all so much for the help! I ended up using PeiterP's idea, but that's mostly because it's the one that I mostly understood HOW it actually worked.
My schooling is in electronics, and as a result, our coding lessons were much simpler then I think they should have been. I'm hoping to go back and learn everything properly when the kids are out of the house and I have some actual free time, but in the meantime, these forums are a lifesaver!
Thank you all so much for the help. After this project, I will likely be trying the other implementations, to figure out how and why they work, so might have some more questions in a month or two.