Part 1

Myself, Are Halvorsen and Marius Gundersen built a Game Show System!

The system is mainly for a quiz show with Ingeniørspillet at Trondheims Student Society (http://www.samfundet.no/). The event is april 14, and if you are in town I really recommend going (information) =)

Main features of the system:

• A buzzer button for each team.
• Local podium light for each team.
• The system controls the stage lights over DMX: spotlight on the team that pressed the buzzer first, red light on wrong answer etc.
• The system control a sampler over MIDI: Sound effects on buzzer buttons, correct answer etc.
• Judges controls the reset-, correct- and wrong answer buttons.
• The system will also have a backup audio solution for when a sampler is not present.

Part 2

Since last post we have tested both the sampler and the DMX at the Student Society. Our prototype had some major problems with its clock circuitry, but as a conclusion: We got a good overview over the light and sound system there =)

After some more meetings with the client we created some preliminary flowcharts.

We will implement two different modes: simple and advanced. In the advanced mode teams that buzz, but not first, will be placed in a queue. But in the simple mode it’s only the first team that buzzes after the start-button is pressed that get to answer.

Hardware will be divided into:

• Main controller: This is the part that connects all together. It will contain two AVR 8-bit micro controllers, where the secondary only controls the DMX. The schematics and PCB is shown in a figure below.
• Buzzers: Modified “easy-buttons” from Staples will do the trick.
• Correct, wrong, and, start buttons: Just standard pushbutton.
• Local podium light: Standard table lamps.

For connecting the buttons to the main controller cat-5 cable will be used. This is for easy replacement off buttons or cables, and because we need enough lines for driving leds inside the buzzer buttons.

Schematics and PCB layout for the main board:

Part 3

Just some pictures from the progress =)

Part 4

Video from the show:

Finishing the creation:

System in use: