Building an Open Source "Clicker"?

fieldtest asks: "Most Slashdot readers have read about "clickers", remote control style devices that students use to wirelessly answer a teacher's questions. Unfortunately, as a college student, I have had less than stellar experiences with these clickers. I hear complaints from my professors and fellow students often as well. So, I want to build an open source clicker system for all universities to use. I believe that this is a prime opportunity to show how powerful free software can be. So, what do the talented people of Slashdot recommend?" "The problem is this: a clicker system requires...clickers. What I need are remote controls that have a minimum of 6 buttons (for users to select options with). The sticking point comes when a button is pressed -- the remote must send the option choice, as well as a unique ID specific to the remote, so the clicker software can distinguish between different students.

I've experimented and Googled around. I've tried standard TV remote controls combined with an USB-UIRT receiver, but the range was too low. Googling shows some interesting programmable remotes, but they're far too expensive ($100+) to have each user purchase one.

How should I go about building the perfect clicker and receiver system? Any suggestion is welcome, from IR to radio, from Bluetooth to ZigBee based communications. Recommend a commercial product, or a do it yourself solution. Please also recommend a receiver device, and a way to connect it to a computer. Also, if you recommend that I just build a custom circuit board for the remote control, please give some references and examples of how it should be implemented."

Comments

Lo-Tech Solution

[multipartmixed]

Put the room on springs.

Put a giant bar magnet with the north pole facing down in the ceiling.

Give each student a bar magnet. Mark the south pole "yes" and the north pole "no".

Students hold their magnets in the air to indicate the answer.

If the room moves up, the majority of the students chose "yes". If it moves down, the majority of the students chose "no". The more it moves, the more the students are in agreement.

Best of all, the batteries will never die.

Unless you drop the answer sticks.

Re:Lo-Tech Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Most rooms have seperate floors and ceiling. Doing otherwise requires rather bizarre architecture.

Re:Lo-Tech Solution

[femto]

Is it really fair that a taller student's vote counts more than a shorter student's?

Here is a better idea:

Enclose the room in a giant coil. Ideally this coil will be of infinite length to get a uniform field, thus giving short students the same vote as taller students. Each student gets to keep their magnet.

At the count of three, each student either points the north pole of their magnet to the front of the room (for yes) or the rear of the room (for no).

The polarity of the current spike induced in the coil indicates the majority yes/no vote. The magnitude can be usd to inicate the strength of the yes/no.

Apart from being fair to short students, this method does better then needing no batteries. It generates power. The power generated can be sold to the electricity grid and the system will eventually pay for itself. Once it has paid for itself the system will return a profit to the university. Surely a good thing in this day and age when Universities are expected to return money from teaching and research?

The submitter's real question . . .

[EraserMouseMan]

Q: "How do I get the smart slashdot folks to help me with my class project?"

A: "Tell them that I'm gonna make it Open Source!"

Re:The submitter's real question . . .

[dhclab49]

First, go make some smart slashdot folks.

Open-source, royalty-free, wireless solution

[sulli]

Students raise hands and shout "ME ME ME ME ME!!!!" when they get the answer.

Re:Wireless?

[chris_mahan]

laser pointers, 4 large areas above the boards: A, B, C, D. A&D substitute for yes/no.

Have people point to the area they want. roughly count the dots.

Anonymous too: it's hard to tell in a room of 100 students where 1 in patricular is pointing to.

Of course, this could also be used as a mass weapon against a professor who insists on lecturing until the very last minute of class, and _then_ giving out the assignment for next class.

Re:the problem with clickers

[aardvarkjoe]

But the reality of the situation is that you'd have to give out clickers to every student, then train the professors how to use them.

Close. The real reality of the situation is that you sell clickers to every student (making a tidy profit), and then the professors don't use them because they don't know how.

Re:Parent post has all the answers!

[darkpixel2k]

Hey fireboy....um...I have a problem with my...er...printer. ...and I was wondering if you could give me a hand...