Working from the ground up...

[Dbacksfan12]

I've picked a job back up at the local educational TV station in town....and am pondering game show formats to work with.  Does anyone know how hard it would be to build a lockout device? [With, or without scoring on the podia?]  I imagine it can't be *that* hard...as Pressman released their electronic J! game...for a relatively low price, but this is larger scale.

If that's too hard; anyone have a source where I could get a quality system for a low price? The station is low-budget...and doesn't have much room for expenditures.  There's no old game show sets laying around somewhere, is there?

[chris319]

Here are some links to lockout kits:

http://www.almorale.com/buzzers.html

http://www.electrokits.com/electronic-kits/games/203.htm

http://www.acegame.biz/quizbuzzer.htm

http://bbbuzzers.netfirms.com/

http://www.brainfaction.com/

http://www.buzzers.com/usb_buzzers.htm

http://www.trainerswarehouse.com/shop/prod...item=6&mitem=67

http://www.zeecraft.com/

Some of these look like nothing more than consumer-grade toys. If you're going to do a TV series you want something that's going to withstand multiple setups and teardowns, not cheap plastic stuff that's going to break the first time it falls on the floor. Once you've got the circuitry down you might want to build heavier-duty enclosures. You also want light boxes which are bright enough to read on camera and hopefully your choice of sound effect so you're not stuck with some obnoxious electronic alarm sound. You also don't want something battery operated which exposes you to the risk that the batteries will die in mid-game.

[Matt Ottinger]

As the $14.95 circuit board option suggests, there's really not a lot to the circuitry, at least as far as a decent engineer would be concerned.  At QuizBusters, we recently tried to go back and find out what company it was that designed our system for us originally, but best we can tell they went out of business long ago.  For years and years, our system has been maintained by our relatively small engineering staff.  If we've invested any money in it at all in the last ten years, it's been minimal.

Lockout systems for quizbowl competitions ar fairly common (as noted by Chris' links above) but as Chris says, the needs for a decent looking TV show are going to be different.  Ultimately, you're probably going to want somebody on your side who's familiar with electronics.  That and a creative set designer are the two biggest overlooked things that anybody trying to put a local game show together needs.

[chris319]

As the $14.95 circuit board option suggests, there's really not a lot to the circuitry

Though the circuit may be simple, the devil is in the fabrication. It's easier to mass produce a production run of PC boards and sell them for $15 each than to design a prototype from scratch and build it by hand (been there, done that). Also, I doubt the $15 option is capable of handling the current needed for the bright light bulbs you would need in a TV studio.

This show can either look like a cheesy quiz bowl presentation or it can look more polished, approaching "Hollywood" quality, depending mainly on how much money they are willing to spend.

[chris319]

Here are some more circuits:

http://www.techlib.com/electronics/games.html (see the "digital" circuit at the bottom of the page)

http://www.audioscientific.com/46_Circuit_...first_event.jpg

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/B...7.htm#game1.gif

[chris319]

You can also do a Google search for "PCI relay board" to find PCI cards which plug into a computer, read the outputs of the contestants' buttons, and activate the appropriate light/sound effect.

[dazztardly]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Jan 4 2005, 03:47 PM\']As the $14.95 circuit board option suggests, there's really not a lot to the circuitry, at least as far as a decent engineer would be concerned.  At QuizBusters, we recently tried to go back and find out what company it was that designed our system for us originally, but best we can tell they went out of business long ago.  For years and years, our system has been maintained by our relatively small engineering staff.  If we've invested any money in it at all in the last ten years, it's been minimal.

Lockout systems for quizbowl competitions ar fairly common (as noted by Chris' links above) but as Chris says, the needs for a decent looking TV show are going to be different.  Ultimately, you're probably going to want somebody on your side who's familiar with electronics.  That and a creative set designer are the two biggest overlooked things that anybody trying to put a local game show together needs.

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Matt,
Are you talking about Perfection Electricks? [Marty Chafkin's company]

-Dan

[dazztardly]

[quote name=\'Dsmith\' date=\'Jan 4 2005, 02:03 PM\']I've picked a job back up at the local educational TV station in town....and am pondering game show formats to work with.  Does anyone know how hard it would be to build a lockout device? [With, or without scoring on the podia?]  I imagine it can't be *that* hard...as Pressman released their electronic J! game...for a relatively low price, but this is larger scale.

If that's too hard; anyone have a source where I could get a quality system for a low price? The station is low-budget...and doesn't have much room for expenditures.  There's no old game show sets laying around somewhere, is there?

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If you have no prior experience with electrical wiring, either buy one prebuilt...otherwise consult an electrician in your area and refer him to the thread and the PCI Board/schematic links posted by Chris.

If you're using a buzzer system through computer software and you wanna get custom with the push buttons, visit http://www.x-keys.com They sell kits. We went through these guys to purchase the keypads for America's Most Talented Kids. Top notch quality.

http://www.breter.it/eng/index.asp - This is the company that makes the "masher" push button assemblies[with contact blocks] you see on Feud and Whammy! You can't order directly from the company. However, you either try to email them and they will get you in touch with a distributor...or you can take a stab at contacting CBS Electronics.

Hope this helps. Chris319 could probably point you in the direction to go better than I could.

-Dan