Student project

[Doon1]

Hi Guys,
First post. My students are building a unit to display diesel engine components. Each component will have a button next to it . The unit will have 3 monitors/tv's with speakers. Each of these monitors will run a short video clip of a student describing the part that was selected using the button located next to each part (6 parts per monitor). One option is to have 3 small computers on the unit; each one controlling the button inputs via a HID device and a .bat file written for each button. Another option is????
I was wondering if there are any CD players that have a button for each track... or anything else you might think of.
I'd rather not spend $1200 of my budget on computers if I have to, but the Newegg cart is loaded up just in case no other , more cost effective, option is available.
Thanks for your time.
John Muldoon

 

[picbits]

Raspberry Pi running Linux and using the I/O pins to trigger programs/video when pressed ?

I've very little experience of the R Pi but the Python scripting language or even just shell scripts in Linux is fairly easy to pick up and I know the R Pi can output HDMI in ful 1080p so some cheap < $100 monitors/TVs with HDMI / DVI would do the job.

Maybe even a few cheap DVD players, each with one track on it and when you press the button, the input to the monitor switches to the appropriate DVD player, the play button is pressed and when finished, the stop button is pressed and the monitor is switched to a blank input ?

A single Raspberry Pi with a 8gb or 16gb SD card and a few external periphals would be my first line of thought though.