I have paintball guns mounted on a bus (36 guns) and they shoot targets out in a field. I thought how much more fun would it be if you were competing against the others and if you shot a target it gave you a point and at the end you could see who won with the most points! I would have to mount something on the gun in order to send a RF or some sort of “signal” to a receiver and the receiver know what address or “paintball gun” it was coming from in order to register the number on a 7-segment serial enabled display (I chose this one because it has the counting feature on it). This would be relatively easy if there was only one paintball gun and/or only one shooting at a time. However, there are 36 guns shooting all the time and it would have to be wireless. Also, not only are there 36 guns on a bus, there are 4 different buss’s . Furthermore, the bus is the only power source that is self re-generating (off the 12 Volt battery), I could bring portable power to the field batteries most likely considering its 13 acres.
If anyone could throw some advice or help in this topic… I would greatly appreciate it. I’m trying to complete this before august. On top of about a million other projects… because right now… I’M STUMPED!
Are the 36 guns shooting at the same time at the same target(s) ? I don’t know how you’ll tell which guy hit the target (and which missed) when 2 shooters fired at the same time. A hit detector is easy enough and then if you had 36 differing colors of markers, a camera could be triggered to record the color of the hit. Image recognition could (w/difficulty) perhaps tell what color last hit. I think you’ve got a larger issue to tackle before you figure out how to send the information.
Yes all the guns shoot at the same targets. Using the same logic as laser tag where they have “stations” you can shoot and rack up points individually and multiple people could be shooting it at once… OR maybe have the target live until shot, recognize who shot it (or what gun shot it) then going dead to reset itself and when it turns back on a different person could shoot it… I’m not trying to base a hit or miss necessarily off the paintball itself but off an attachment on the paint ball gun that “shoots” some sort of signal!
The “bullet” in lasertag can be coded, each gun can fire a recognizably different stream of photons and so the target can know what gun fired what stream. No different from your TV remote control sending On or UP or Channel2 commands. In paintball you’ve not got that option unless it’s different colors or perhaps some RFID in every marker fired (ha !). Just knowing which guns fired at the same (or near enough) time doesn’t tell you which marker scored the hit.
Here’s your worst case scenario ?? (?is it allowed in your zombie hunt?) Two guys fire at the same target at the same time. There’s 1 hit and 1 miss. How do you tell which gun fired the hit ? Simply knowing the time of the shot isn’t going to do it.
I guess I didn’t explain it well… I want to build lazer tag into the guns the paintball will be just for show but the laser tag system will be built on the gun… So every time I pull the trigger. A paint ball shoots cause that’s fun… But in reality you got a tv remote mounted to it and it’s sending out a frequency all in it’s own… I basically need to know how to build a laser tag system with 36 guns shooting at targets
trevorECM18:
I guess I didn’t explain it well… I want to build lazer tag into the guns the paintball will be just for show but the laser tag system will be built on the gun… So every time I pull the trigger. A paint ball shoots cause that’s fun… But in reality you got a tv remote mounted to it and it’s sending out a frequency all in it’s own… I basically need to know how to build a laser tag system with 36 guns shooting at targets
Well then all you really need, for a wireless system, is a target to bus link. That target receives and decodes the photon stream that hits it and transmits that info, via RF, to the bus to be stored and displayed. Each "gun" need only be different from each other and need not be linked into the system. And that's a good thing as there are 36 "guns" and X many targets.
As for what to use for that RF link … I don’t know what to say yet. I think you’ve got to flesh out what happens in a shoot out a bit more and the requirements that situation imposes. For example … can multiple shooters aim and fire at the same target at the same time ? If so then the target needs to be able to tell one “hit” from the other when the streams cross … errr … everlap in time. If such a distinction can’t be made, then the target should convey what for info back to the bus ? Or should you pay the extra $$s so such a situation can’t happen ? If multiple targets are being hit at the same time such that their RF transmissions overlap in time (seems highly likely) at the bus receiver, what should happen ? A lot of systems have collision protocols … or should you spend the extra $$ and put every target on it’s own RF frequency ?
You’ve got a lot of thinking to do to make this work before getting to picking a particular RF xmitter/receiver pair. And I’ve not touched on link budgets.
Just my opinion … if I were on a zombie hunt and my paintball scored a hit while my neighbor’s didn’t and yet he got credit for the hit because his laser scored before mine … I’d be a little PO’ed. Then again I’m a competitive SOB. Any system where the visual (paintball hit) can conflict with the scoring (laser hit) will lead to arguments with your customers. Good luck with that.
. Furthermore, the bus is the only power source that is self re-generating (off the 12 Volt battery), I could bring portable power to the field batteries most likely considering its 13 acres.
