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

It's been done...

[El]

It's called "applause". If you don't hear any, then the show sucks...

Suggestion...

[zoloto]

How come you don't make the keyboards embedded into the chair in front of them, or pullout keyboards like some college lecture rooms have pullout 'deskspace'?

This is rather simple and conversion from ps/2 or usb to cat5 cable for the sole purpose of keyboard data isn't very difficult.

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.

Simple solution, brought to you by MadScience(TM)

[ArmorFiend]

Simply shrink each and every audience member to be the size of a nickel, then have up to 104 of them stand on your keyboard. If they like something, have them jump, thus depressing their key.

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.