Wireless Audience Response Systems?

kjeldahl asks: "I've got some project ideas involving what I have learned are named audience response systems. These are small devices (typically a small keyboard with a few buttons) that can be handed out to an audience where they can participate in some kind of 'voting' or selection process where they press some buttons and their selections are recorded by a central server. Looking further, the wireless options include RF and IR, although IR senders typically conflict with eachother in environments with lots of people pushing buttons simultaneously. To be useful, one typically needs to be able to know the various devices apart (device X sent keypress Y). Some of the more advanced devices even include two-way communication with display abilities. Anyway, these devices seem very specialized and kind of tied to the platform (including hardware and software) - in effect quite expensive. Does anyone know of open audience response systems which use well-known technologies which can be adapted for use for audience response systems? I would guess the candidates include wireless keyboards (assuming they do not conflict with eachother), Bluetooth and WLAN-based systems."

Comments

And what costs are we comparing to?

[borgboy]

It seems to me that a large portion of the inherent costs of a system like this is the hardware. What are your per-audience-member costs for a typical system? Maybe a bunch of wireless palms and a smallish pc server could do the deed?

These already exist and in a better format: analog

[Dancin_Santa]

Previewing audiences are frequently handed little boxes with a dial on it which they use to dial in their approval of the show. If they like it a lot they can dial all the way up. If they hate it they can dial it all the way down. If they find something mildly amusing they can dial it to somewhere in the middle.

It's instantaneous and doesn't have the problem of a hundred people pounding on a keyboard in the middle of a show.

Re:i hate to say it, but....

[Jellybob]

In the UK, you could just tell the audience to send text messages, and give each member a unique ID that makes sure it's coming from them.

You could probably even not pay them back for it... seems if it's got "SMS" in the idea, people will think it's excellent.

(No... I'm not getting pissed off with everything being done by text message. Including a pilot scheme by the police to allow calling them with text messages.)

Most such systems are wired

[mbstone]

The typical audience response system involves mere dozens, or a couple of hundred at best, user stations, and for TV live broadcasts or tapings they are typically wired (so as not to interfere with audio or video, esp. wireless mics). Any wireless system of sufficient numerosity to overcome the efficiency of merely using a wired system would be subject to packet collisions and crosstalk (infrared, from studio lighting; RF, to/from various other RF receiving or emitting devices). Real TV shoots burn too much money per minute to incur the risk response-system debugging delays.

Audience response systems (wired, for maybe 10-20 people, max) are used in TV show test-audience previews, e.g. at the Venetian or MGM Grand hotels in Las Vegas where you can earn $10 by previewing the latest NBC or CBS programs, respectively. Tell the nice lady you are between 18 and 49.

(MAD magazine once theorized that new network TV shows are selected according to how many preview-audience members fall asleep on their "I Like" buttons as opposed to the number of testers falling asleep on their "Don't Like" buttons.)

The best known and most widely used audience response system in television is the Applause light where a wired system connected to a single SPST switch illuminates an Applause sign. For some reason, this device, when activated, causes the audience to respond with applause, whether or not the subject matter is praiseworthy or even entertaining (e.g. the appearance of a new washing machine on The Price Is Right).

PRS (Personal Response System)

[pyite]

At Rutgers University's Physics Lecture Hall there is a PRS (Personal Response System) setup. Basically, every student who ever takes a Physics class has to buy a $30 transmitter to participate in class. It works via IR so the system can get overloaded with a large class. However, the IDs of the units responding show up in a dynamic list on the projected screen as you respond (so you can see if your answer got registered). The system then displays a graph (or presumably other information) detailing which answers were chosen. It's good because it can't hurt your grade if you are there to press the button (you get one point for pressing the button, two for being right, out of a possible one point). It's bad because you lose points off your PRS portion of the grade if you don't go to class or forget your transmitter. You cannot borrow someone else's because an ID is hard coded into the device and then one to one associated with your student ID.