Super Quiz Game with 32x64 RGB LED matrix - Design suggestions needed! :)

Hi All,
I would like to realize a nice electronic "Super Quiz Game" and I've in my mind a big picture of the design but I still need a lot of suggestions from you expert Guys because I don't know how far I can go with these ideas.

Basically I would like to implement 4 "smart" buttons by using an Arduino Pro Micro for each of them. Each button should be wired to the main Controller Box via I2C. I thought this could be the best solution because the bus uses only 2 wires, so I will be able to perform the connections by using a simple USB cable (which carries also the power).

With an intelligent button, my idea is to easily manage the logic of a buzzer and an LED integrated in the button box, but first of all, I can also communicate with the Controller Box and get syinchronized with each phase of the game. For example at the beginning of the game I can interrogate each button and receive a presence message. This will tell me how many participants will play.

In the next phase the game starts and my idea is to show the game text onto a nice 32*64 RGB matrix LED display (the famous one from Adafruit). After the button interrogation, I would like to show the list of participants on this display and to assign them a name using a system like the old score charts in the arcade games from the 80's: 3 chars for each player, each char changeable up and down and selectable left and right. To accomplish this task, the Controller Box should have 6 buttons: 4 arrows, then an OK button and a "Cancel/NOK" button.

After this phase I can show for example some game options on the screen (like negative points enabled when wrong answer given, or whatever someone wants...) and then the real game starts. All names will be listed with different colors (matching with the corresponding button colour) and the score will appear on the right side.

In this phase the buttons are allowed to send a booking message via I2C in order to book the answer, and the Controller Box replies with another message telling the button whether it is the first one or not. Depending on this answer, the button can also decide to sound differently and/or to turn on the LED with a different effect (for example fixed light for the first one, blinking light for the others). The Controller Box should not disable all the other buttons after the first one books the answer. It should just acquire the booking order and show it on the screen, for example in a middle column between the name and the score.

Of course the Game Captain decides whether the answer is correct or not by using the OK or NOK buttons. In the first case all the buttons are reset (always via proper I2C message), the scores get updated and the game goes on. Otherwise the current button is disabled for a while and the next one in the list will get a message meaning it is allowed to answer (and the LED might also change from blinking to fixed light).

With this architecture I think it is possible to play a lot around the possible features to be implemented. What I'm now sure about is how much power in terms of CPU I need. In particular, at the beginning I thought that the display might be driven by the Controller Box via an Arduino Mega, which should be also the central brain of the whole system (hence controlling the I2C bus as well), but reading some articles on the Adafruit website about the RGB martix has made me no more sure about this choice. So then I thought the best choice is to separate the tasks, which means an Arduino Mega only for the RGB matrix and an Arduino UNO for the Controller Box. But then, how can I separate the Graphic code execution (to be run in the Mega) from the Controller code to be run in the UNO?? It would me more or less like having a CPU and a GPU, but my concern is that this solution might be considerably difficult to program (maybe too much for me...)

Hope to get soon all your precious suggestions to make this idea HW-efficient and easy to program!

Thank you All!
Bye.

Antonio

Damn.. that was a big post :smiley: ..
I'm sure very few people read it and this might be the reason you don't have any answers!
I read it all and still, can't find the real question :smiley: .. i see very cool idea for a project and very easy to make, u don't have to complicate it !

In my perspective you should use only an Arduino Mega with homemade Controllers, very simple controlers ( only Yes or No buttons ) attached to the Controller box with the usb connector (1button-2wires/2buttons-4wires)