Looking For Decent Game "Buzzers"?

[TimK2003]

I tried this idea over the weekend to very good results, so I thought I'd share this helpful hint...


Those portable "Touch Lights" that were all the rage a few years ago on those "As Seen On TV" commercials make for great light up buzzers.
 
(These touch lights are now available in most hardware stores, sometimes found in the dollar stores, and usually in multiples -- Batteries not included -- so with 4 AA batteries, you may be looking at about $2 per buzzer.  Definitely a cheap way of creating game show props.)


The great thing about the lights is that if pushed correctly, the light goes on and stays on untill they are pushed a second time.  The bad is that you need to have a someone with a keen eye to see who "buzzes in" first when it's an almost simultaneous response.


Looking at how easy you can get at the "guts" of each light base with a Phillips screwdriver, it looks like you can make modifications, such as:

• Adding an actual buzzer mechanism to each portable light base (perhaps different-toned buzzers)  or inside the base if small enough.

• Lining the inside light cover with transparent colored plastic to differentiate the buzzers (i.e. red vs blue.

•  If you're really electronic savvy, you can probably rewire and link a few of them together into  a central location to create a true lockout system.



If anyone else has tried this idea, or if anyone tries this "why didn't I think of that" idea, and customizes the bases as stated above, let us know how it goes.

Anybody else come up with simple/cheap ways to make game show props???

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Jul 24 2005, 06:02 PM\']The great thing about the lights is that if pushed correctly, the light goes on and stays on untill they are pushed a second time.  The bad is that you need to have a someone with a keen eye to see who "buzzes in" first when it's an almost simultaneous response.
[/quote]
Which, short of a major league baseball umpire, can be problematic. I remember playing in Knowledge Bowl in high school, and they had a similar system. We quickly learned, for some reason, that the judges, when faced with a tight decision as to who rang in first, tended to go with the right-hand buzzer. Fortunately for us, we figured this out fairly early in the tournament, and we made sure to arrive at later matches early enough to have our pick at which buzzer we worked from.

As far as lockout circuits go. I direct you to http://www.techlib.com/electronics/games.html, which explains how to wire one up pretty easily...I see it being pretty trivial to wire in one of these lights to it, I think. I also direct you to http://www.arcadeparadise.org/console/ydkj2/, which is the project that got me interested in building arcade panels, and I think will be my next electronics project when I have some disposable income again, because I'd like to expand it into something that could be used generically for many games.

[William_S.]

or there's allways E-bay.

two decent ones IMHO would be,

SOTC Quizzard: the buzzers are a little bit more flexable than the regular Quizzard. Since the SOTC set up under the board. While the regular would br more of a spider set up and the players would have to sit in a circular formation.
Though you could with electrical knollage and mastery in soldering . you could extend the wires from the base.

Another would be "Remote Possiblities":  this one is a wireless set up and I'm sure you can set it up for a free quiz mode for any type of game .

Just throwing some more Ideas to the pot.

[Steve McClellan]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jul 24 2005, 07:02 PM\'][quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Jul 24 2005, 06:02 PM\']The bad is that you need to have a someone with a keen eye to see who "buzzes in" first when it's an almost simultaneous response.
[/quote]
Which, short of a major league baseball umpire, can be problematic.[/quote]
...or *with* a major league umpire.

---Steve - who just missed the cut at pro umpire school last year

ObLockout: If you're willing to spend a little more coin, try http://www.svbz.com/.

[Dbacksfan12]

You might try this thread in "Behind the Scenes".

[chris319]

light up buzzers

Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim

By definition a buzzer does not light up, viz.:

buzz·er

An electric signaling device, such as a doorbell, that makes a buzzing sound.

In proper game show parlance, a buzzer is a sound effect; a lockout is a signalling device which is supposed to lock out other players, thus indicating who responded first.

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Jul 25 2005, 03:39 PM\']In proper game show parlance, a buzzer is a sound effect; a lockout is a signalling device which is supposed to lock out other players, thus indicating who responded first.

[snapback]92255[/snapback]

[/quote]


My bad...I will now write "I will not call a silent signaling device a buzzer" 100 times on the chalkboard next time I step into our corner elementary school on Election Day to vote.