QBBuzzer: A Free Online Buzzer System

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jonathanluck
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QBBuzzer: A Free Online Buzzer System

Post by jonathanluck »

QBBuzzer.com

Instructions - Go to the website and have everyone in your party join the same room. Press the button that says BUZZ to (you guessed it) buzz. You can manually clear it before the time runs out. The settings button displays (you guessed it again) the settings, where you can toggle various things.

What - QBBuzzer is a free online buzzer system. It is a website so it should work cross-platform without any major compatibility issues (it should work on whatever device you want as long as it has an internet connection and a modern web browser). Nothing fancy...just a regular buzzer system. It tells you who buzzed and has lockout functionality. Yay!

Why - We decided to create QBBuzzer for a couple reasons. The first of which is that we had 25 people practices with 1 functioning buzzer system (10 buzzers). We had to split up practices with one room slapbowling. It sucked. We wanted to make something to fix that.
The other reason we created this was to help lower the barrier to entry for quizbowl. Buzzer systems are expensive. With this site, starting a new team is hopefully easier because you don't have to buy/borrow buzzer systems.

Who/When/How - Kevin Wu and I wrote most of the code for this website. We had assistance from various friends in terms of design feedback, help with git, and selecting platforms.
This has been a project we have sporadically worked on since April 2015.
Technology: Server is running Nodejs with Socket.IO for websockets
Github
Server is on AWS.

Notes:
-We don't have latency controls implemented at the moment. We have been investigating solutions and will (hopefully) deploy latency controls in the future. In the mean time, it is best if everyone in your part is on the same network connection to reduce variation in latency.
-We have had some problems with Safari on the iPhone 6. We haven't been able to figure out why, so our very technical solution is to use Chrome until we can figure it out.
-We haven't had the opportunity to properly test it on Windows Phone (because honestly...we don't know anyone who actually owns a Windows Phone)
-The mobile interface looks marginally better. We won't apologize for the desktop interface. Just shrink the window if it offends your eyes.
-In terms of functionality we are pretty much done. We may implement some UI tweaks over the next few months if we find the time--1/29/16

Contact
If you want to report bugs/security issues, tell us how much our code sucks, or suggest a feature: [email protected]

Screenshots:
Image Image
Last edited by jonathanluck on Sat Jan 30, 2016 3:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jonathan Luck
Canyon Crest Academy 2012-2015
University of California San Diego 2015-2019
NAQT Writer and Subject Editor
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Hyrdofluoric_Acid
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Re: QBBuzzer: A Free Online Buzzer System

Post by Hyrdofluoric_Acid »

Thank you for doing this. This is really cool!
John W. of University of Minnesota
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