Feasibility of use as input device for Paintball Xball Scoreboard

Projects General Guidance
1

Good Afternoon everyone,
I play competitive paintball and at our weekly practices, we run "scoreboard software" with a PA system to simulate the format of national tournaments. The one hassle with the software is that we have to keep someone operating the scoreboard software. Since the software has the ability to map functions to keys, our hope is to connect a large pushbutton switch at each "Start Box" and keybind them to H and G respectively... then the teams on the field can indicate when ready to start or indicate when they've scored a point.

Flow of how it would work:

Before Game Time:

Press the H key to ready Home Team.
Press the G key to ready Guest Team.

Stand BY Time:

Thirty seconds of standby time after both team are ready.

During Game Time:

Home Team presses the G Key to score one point and start break time.

Guest Team presses the H Key to score one point and start break time.

Repeat until time has elapsed for the half (25 minutes)

Would it be possible to use the Arduino to process the pushbutton signal back to the computer?
The start boxes are roughly 30ft and 230ft from the computer running the scoreboard... would that distance be prohibitive for what we wish to do? Would this be more reliable than buying a USB Extender(over cat5, $75 - $250 for 150 - 300ft extension)?

Xball Scoreboard Software
http://www.lurkerpb.com/xballsoftware/xballflash.html
http://www.kongregate.com/Fgames/Santolife/xball-scoreboard

Big Dome Pushbutton Switch

Thanks for your time and advice,
Evins W.

2

What about having several arduino units. One for each button, which would also utilize a long-range RF transmitter module, and one near the computer which would have a receiver. The home and guest team transmitter/button units would send different data, allowing the receiving arduino to determine which team had scored, and send the data to your PC over a serial/USB connection.

How's that? I bet it would cost a lot less than the $75-$250 for that USB extender... and there are loads of code libraries and examples out there to help you get started.

3

Yea, that sounds ideal. I was not looking forward to having to run wire before each practice.

Are those components all available on the SparkFun site?

4

Should be, if not there are many other suppliers as you don't need any specialised or hard-to-find parts. Good luck!