Help wid projects plz...ne1???

[batoutofhell]

i have this project...where we are supposed to use mutiple controllers to asnwer a question and this wud be processed n answers shown as a graph of sum sort.... for example if the q is what is 2+2?? there wud be 5options like
a.1
b.2
c.3
d.4
e.5
so the user will press c,d or w/e and the answers wud be shown as a graph sorta like who wants to be a millioniers public poll life line
so pplz can i get sum suggestions or links to sites
thanxxx

 

[tunedwolf]

here's a site that you will benefit from...

https://www.antimoon.com/

 

[mramos1]

Loading my spell checker (not that it will help) so I can read the post and I will get back to you.

But the start of the message was very good. Gave up on w/e.

 

[batoutofhell]

sorry for the crap spelling bro :$

 

[batoutofhell]

but thanx to tunedwolf ...if experienced members are soo helpful then this is really really rox.....

 

[philba]

I refrained from making edja-kayshun jokes but initially passed on your request because of willful misuse of the language. It's bad enough that people don't learn the language well but it's really irritating when people deliberately mangle it just to be cool. When you get out of school, I think potential employers will not be impressed with that kind of language skill.

Ignoring that, you need to specify the parameters better (and in better English). For example, you say "multiple controllers". How many is that? Wired or wireless?

Maybe you could post the assignment the teacher gave you.

 

[batoutofhell]

Thank you philba, but i wasn't trying to be cool or anything just that writing this way has sort of become a habit. It is not that i do not know proper english, neither do i not know how to spell properly. But my project was not to learn english and the phonetics of the english language and neither did i want a link to the sites that teach "proper" english. But i always thought of this site an extremely helpful place, but some of these above usuers have forced me to think other wise.

Whatever the case, i would like to bring this particular post to the attention of the administrators or moderatrs of this forum so that they know what has been goin on.

And about the parameters of my project it is not wireless, it is a basic construction of what ever i have descirbed above and it is not a necessity of being so posh. Just a simple poll system where we will have multiple users (max of 10) each with a controller(wired) which maybe be connected to a hub of some sort.

The main of my project is to show the results of the polls and the hardware requirement is not limited. Basically we are allowed to use whatever tools that we can get our hands on.

Therefore if anyone of you out there would be kind enough to please, i reapeat, please help me with anything you have related to this project of mine, dont hesitate to post.

If you are trying to teach me english or any other language in this universe, please try and follow the rules of a forum, if u havent been to any forum before please buy a book called forum for dummies(if it is available anyways)

DO NOT SPOIL A GOOD FORUM BY PASSING YOUR TIME POSTING JOKES WHICH ONLY U THINK IS FUNNY

 

[tunedwolf]

Now that you are at least making an effort to be clear in what you want, I am more than happy to try and help you if I can
Your spelling being poor, typo's etc I can live with, as can most folks here, but when you deliberately use shortform mumbo jumbo, nobody really has a clue what you are going on about, and it only get's worse when code etc is being discussed or when someone where english is not their first language is trying to help you. Not to mention it's a downright pain in the backside having to decode it as you read, so if you wish help here, please save the mumbo jumbo for your cellphone.

 

[tunedwolf]

You don't mention if you can program microcontrollers, or what your background in electronics is...can you fill us in a little, so that we might have a better chance to understand where you are coming from with this ?

You really need to try to define a little more what you are attempting to do here as it will ultimately shape your solution...

Does this "hub" require to simultaneously receive the voting information from all ten participants ? or can they be sequentially polled ?

You mention you need the information graphed, I assume therefore that you require five columns of lights with ten lights in each column, is this correct ?
I mention lights, because you haven't clarified what type of display you are wanting to use. This could be simply five small LED bargraph displays with ten segments each.

What voltages will likely be involved ?, are you planning on using a plug in low voltage power supply, batteries or mains ?

Do you have a budget in mind ? be realistic if you can, it will help direct your project towards a solution.

It will also help you a little if you fill in your location in your forum profile, so that folks recommending a particular component or power supply, know what voltage and frequency your mains is, and perhaps how easy it might be to obtain the parts locally etc

 

[batoutofhell]

Well basically this hub should be able to accept votings simulteneously. but the graphs could be done by using a computer interface. for example the hub mite have an USB connection with the pc so the pc would just genarate the graphs and show it in the monitor.

We might be using 5v dc sources and if not then 220v mains supply is my option (i guess)

My background in electronics is 2nd yr in college and no i cannot program microcontrollers.

Basically i am an amature when it comes to electronic projects. The only projects i did were making walkie talkies n few fm recievers and stepper motor and i have theoretical knowlegde on multiplexers flip flops opamps counters and basic electrical knowlegde.

 

[mramos1]

Not to beat a dead hourse, but there are many reason to spell correctly or as best you can.

Others search these forums and might have found their answer in this thread, but they did not get a match because of the cool type. Then we all start over in another thread.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

If you are trying to teach me english or any other language in this universe, please try and follow the rules of a forum, if u havent been to any forum before please buy a book called forum for dummies(if it is available anyways)

Perhaps you should try following forum conventions yourself?, text speak is NOT allowed, if you wish to ask a question, do so in English - we don't mind poor spelling or bad English (having your location filled in will help prevent abuse for that, many members don't speak English as a first language!).

But acting like a little kid, thinking it's 'clever' to use stupid text speak will make you no friends and get you no replies - it will also mean you probably will never get offered a job! (certainly not by me!).

So if you expect answers, ask in a sensible fashion!.

 

[tunedwolf]

If you are planning on using USB, there are a couple of options open to you, you can use a converter chip made by FTDI on board the hub. This takes a serial input stream, just like your PC, and handles all the nasty complicated USB stuff for you. The PC will see it as a virtual com port, and you deal with the information as you would with any serial port data.

You could have just a serial port on board the hub, and use a converter lead, it's one of those things with a bump in the middle, again it will be presented as a virtual com port to the PC, but depending on which one you use, it may require a proprietory driver to be loaded. Not that this should present you a problem, but it's an added unknown.

You could use a microcontroller that has a USB port on board, this could also serve to gather the data from the participants' input. The drawback is that you would need to learn to program the microcontroller of your choice, or have someone in one of the computing courses at the college collaborate with you, perhaps a divide and conquer approach might be more beneficial.

Lastly, you could forget about USB altogether and just stick with a serial port on board the hub, this still leaves you with the computer side of things to deal with, but should be easier and a little cheaper to build.

I would suggest that you forget about the simultaneous voting in as far as actually trying to detect, log 10 simultaneous events, and pass it on. It will be better for you to detect and latch each voter's input, then after all voting is complete, gather the information and pass it along to the PC. If you watch those things on the TV you will see that they count up as the folks vote, it's not an instantaneous thing. In the case of USB or indeed any kind of communication with a PC, I don't see any way round having some form of overall intelligence in the hub to gather up the information and control proceedings. This will unfortunately involve you in programming a microcontroller or some other semi intelligent device.

One possible idea comes to mind, build ten parallel to serial converters for the participants' button boxes and tack on an FTDI chip interface to each. Plug 5 each into two cheap USB hubs. That way it's mainly a software issue for the PC to read the 10 virtual com ports and graph the results. Just a random thought...

 

[philba]

Is USB necessary? Unless you've got some electronics and microcontroller skills, it's likely to be difficult for you.

This project is doable without a microcontroller by using the parallel port interface (OS issues, by not impossible). The main controller would have latchs for each vote-box. A command from PC over the parallel port would select each vote-box buffer in turn and then read the latch values from the port. You will probably need to use buffers for each latch and you will need to generate latch clock signal from the vote-box switches. I'd also use a demux to generate the vote-box select signals.

If you are willing to consider microcontrollers. Take a look at the arduino board - there is a USB version. https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=2_103 You would still need to sense the vote box switches but that would be a standard switch-matrix scanning problem. The advantage of this is you could allow people to change their votes before closing voting. You could also add vote indicator LEDs on the vote-boxes using an LED matrix scanning approach.