Stadium WiFi and Weatherproof Tablet PCs?

StadiumOutfitter asks: "I've been tasked with setting up a wireless network for an open air stadium - not just for internet access but potentially with in seat food/drink orders and even interactive game related content. That's the easy part, really. What I'd really like to find is a rugged and weatherproof handheld device (tablet or PDA style) that can do Wifi. The plan is to rent them out during gamedays for people who want to participate, but can't bring a laptop. Any suggestions?

Comments

DIY embedded terminals?

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I've given some thought to something similar. Low cost, mass produced terminals for public schools to help further electronic textbooks.

First off, I must agree with the idea of ruggedized, waterproof tablets. Laptops can easily be worn out in one season of ham-fisted sports-fans opening, closing, dropping, etc. Also, the spilled beer, weather, etc is a big issue.
What I would include in the spec would be:

1. No external moving parts (ex: laptop screens, swivel antenna, etc)
2. No moving internal parts (ex: harddrives, fans, etc)
3. Touch screen (not tablet, those pens get expensive, a sylus is cheep).
4. Sealed, waterproof. (obvious)
5. Rugged, and oversized (for protection and loss prevention.
6. Wireless, but not specifically 802.11b/g
7. Of course, cheaper the better.

So, the 'no moving parts' bit is part of the ruggedized theory, no hinges to be broken, no prodtruding bits to be snapped off, no harddrives to get nuked from drops, no fans to get clogged or broken (imagine popcorn/catsup all over the fan in your laptop).
Plain old touchscreen beats a tablet because you can touch it with anything. With a tablet you need the special pen, and if you teather it you just violated the first item. Besides, no matter how well you tie it on, it'll get broken off eventually. With a plain touchscreen it can be operated with a finger, or a cheap stylus, or even a regular pen, also your cost drops. On a similar note, it should be in a protective case, and sealed shut. like an oversized version of those rubberized sleaves you can get for iPaqs. This will protect the device, can have an easily replacible window (greasy fingers, sharp pens,random scratches, etc), and with large rubberized edges will reduce the chances of being dropped, lessen the damage when it does happen, and prevent the patrons from hurting themselves.
The protective casing can also help loss prevention by making it too large to slip in a purse or backpack, and can be colored to match the decor of the venue. A friend of mine does something similar with a laser pointer he hands to children to ask questions and point things out at the planitarium he runs.
On the issue of wireless, perhaps it would be cheaper to setup bluetooth access points around each section and have those use 802.11b/g or regular cat5 to link into the network. This reduces the cost per unit as well as increases battery life (you're going to have to recharge these things, and the battery will be the bulk of the weight).
An additional benefit to bluetooth is it's short range, regular access throughout the stadiums, but setup special bluetooth gateways around the exits that will alert security if one of the units is about to leave the venue.

Now here comes the big part. You don't make these things from normal computers running winCE or anything even x86 platform. Set up big servers somewhere safe and put all your processing power there. Make the units run off microcontrollers, running linux or some other free OS, with just enough capability to 1) run the touchscreen (serial or USB HID), the bluetooth, tcp/ip stack, the LCD and some form of terminal software (vnc or a remote X windows session). So then, all the user sessions are running on some beefy servers that can each handle 100 clients running a web browser, or macromedia flash, whatever you're doing the apps in.
Now the clients can easily run off a 16MB CF card using midori-linux + iceWM + rsh (like what i'm running my Compaq IA1 internet appliance on).

So, to summarize, you'd end up with:

1. Micro controller/single board computer (modified ethernut, PC104, etc)
2. Low power consumption/heat output
3. Touchscreen (USB HID or Serial)
4. LCD/OLED screen
5. 16MB CF storage
6. linux + X11 + iceWM + rsh
7. linux servers hosting remote sessions supporting webbrowser/flash/whatever
8. Bluetooth tcp/ip access
9. Bluetooth gateways bridging to cat5/wifi in each section (still cheaper than 802.11b in each unit)
10. Rubberized, protective (device and patron) loss prevention reducing casings
11. and a partridge in a pear tree?

anyways, sorry for the rambling braindump format, i'm done now.