Haven't watched through so maybe that but I don't get it. I reckon it's a quick answer quiz type of a show with some buttons and LEDs? LED is probably going to

Haven't watched through so maybe that but I don't get it. I reckon it's a quick answer quiz type of a show with some buttons and LEDs? LED is probably going to come down in DMX, buttons go back in Ethernet or RS485, what is button debouncing and soldering comes into play in that??? Architecture wise, I never thought I'd say this, but I think Arduino PLC unit thing they recently launched might be a good fit for this. The programmable PLC units would synchronize to a broadcast time sync packet, record time when buttons are pressed, and a central laptop would collect data in an asynchronous manner. The PLC units could send out "the rest of you are too late" broadcast to limit candidates of fastest buttons, optionally. With industrial PLC stuffs it'll be all screw or crimp terminals with debouncing likely built into PLC. No mess. Definitely more costly and there will be some learning curve(I'm not even completely sure if what I said is how it could work), those will be cost and risk factors though. Or a bunch of used office desktops and surplus keyboard/mouse kit through eBay could work too. A mouse has 3 or more buttons, and a full keybaord has 3 LED output that can be wired to an SSR. They have debouncing and all programmatic controls built in. Parallel ports on old computers could work as well. Some people loves using /usr/bin/eject along 5" ODD for an extra degrees of freedom and it could work too for show purposes, such as for a mock "jail door", a lightbulb, or a party popper device. But either way, I don't see where in that Raspberry Pi has to come into play, especially with supposedly generous budget and a fixed deadline.