Ring-In System

We received a Jeopardy board game where the players have to ring in with their answers, and it was chaos with everyone reaching for the bell at once. So we did what we do best and built a machine so the players can ring in.

Parts:

• Arduino NANO

• 3 LEDs / resistors (to show who rang in)

• Piezo buzzer (to play a tone after 5 seconds)

• 4 Buttons (3 to ring in and one for the host to start the round)

• Glue sticks with glue removed to hold buttons

• Adafruit Perma-Proto 1/2 size breadboard, adafru.it/1609

• A chip socket to hold the NANO

Story

We needed to figure out how to do many things we used in the project. Here are some examples:

• What tone the time’s up sound was. To do this, we used this video, which has the tone 5 times, and a tone generator.

• How to make the buttons comfortable to hold and press. We took the glue out of some glue sticks and did some drilling.

• People need to ring in after the host activates the timer. Holding the button down during the question shouldn’t work.

Build

We first built this on a breadboard, then moved it to a protoboard so it was semi-permanent. Here is a wiring diagram:

We placed the buttons in glue stick containers so they could be comfortably held in the hand.

We also used a pill bottle for the host’s “start” button so it could be easily distinguished.

That’s about it!