I am a complete novice with electronics, but have a device I would like to create. I'm hoping someone can tell me two things: (1) is the described device possible to create? and (2) would this be something that a determined person could do with no prior experience?
I am a programmer and a teacher and have made a game that allows students to ring in for questions that I ask. The first student to ring in gets an opportunity to answer the question to get points for their team. Presently, I am connecting keyboards to my computer so students must press a specific button to ring in.
I would like to create a device that has about five cables coming out of it, each of which is attached to a single button (preferably the five buttons would be daisy-chained, if that's the correct term, instead of having five cables coming from the device). When the button is pressed, I would like to send a basic signal to my computer wirelessly. The signal could be as simple as a keystroke (as though a keyboard button was pressed) or it could be some other unique identifier that I could read in an Objective-C (Cocoa) program. Is there a way to accomplish this wirelessly? Would Bluetooth be appropriate (this seems advantageous because my computer has Bluetooth built in)? Is this too complex of a project for a beginner? Is this doable within a $50-$75 range?
I thank you in advance for any guidance you might offer me!
I am a programmer and a teacher and have made a game that allows students to ring in for questions that I ask. The first student to ring in gets an opportunity to answer the question to get points for their team. Presently, I am connecting keyboards to my computer so students must press a specific button to ring in.
I would like to create a device that has about five cables coming out of it, each of which is attached to a single button (preferably the five buttons would be daisy-chained, if that's the correct term, instead of having five cables coming from the device). When the button is pressed, I would like to send a basic signal to my computer wirelessly. The signal could be as simple as a keystroke (as though a keyboard button was pressed) or it could be some other unique identifier that I could read in an Objective-C (Cocoa) program. Is there a way to accomplish this wirelessly? Would Bluetooth be appropriate (this seems advantageous because my computer has Bluetooth built in)? Is this too complex of a project for a beginner? Is this doable within a $50-$75 range?
I thank you in advance for any guidance you might offer me!