Interactive Mini golf using FPP?

[OregonZoo]

I have made a few interactive displays that use buttons to trigger shows and I have a potential gig but I'm not sure how to go about it. 

A small local non profit amusement park has a little mini golf thing that they want to have open during their winter light show and they asked me to light it. I was looking at just running water proof strip lights all along the perimiters and doing a programed light show with some chases, but then I started wondering about making it reactive to the people playing golf. I specifically want to do a sensor inside the hole, that triggers a show on just that section of the course. I think it's a 9 hole mini golf?)

Right now my biggest obstacle is wanting to do a wireless sensor module inside the hole cup thing because I don't have a way to run wires underneath the deck or turf on the course. Anyone have any ideas of what kind of hardware I would need? Would using falcon to play the sequences and receive the triggers/play the effects for getting the ball in the hole be the way to go? Is this more of an arduino type show? I'd love to run it through falcon for the ease of modifying and troubleshooting now that I am somewhat familiar with the FPP GPIO section.

Would I need a pi running falcon at each hole running the show and interrupt and play when triggered by whatever sensor goes in the cup? Can I have one pi that monitors them all and plays different shows on each hole and then only interrupts or modifies the lights on that hole when someone scores? Am I crazy or approaching it all wrong? Is this even doable? I have pretty limited experience and know just enough to get myself in trouble when it comes to coding and programming lighting, so I could really use some help with this idea.

Thank you all!

[Bwinter]

ESP32 using its ESP-Now wireless protocol would be an easy route to have located in each hole.  Def seems like an Arduino project (and not FPP)

[MikeKrebs]

Maybe some version (custom) of ESPixelstick firmware with an extension to run custom sequences on gpio trigger?

[Mark_M]

Def seems like an Arduino project (and not FPP)

I would possibly still use FPP.
So that multiple effects can be mapped in xLights and uploaded to FPP.
Then effects can be played based on season... e.g. Halloween effects playlist or Spring playlist.
Triggers from MQTT hook, GPIO pins, or another IP hook to trigger an effect in FPP.

FPP can be an MQTT broker. That opens the opportunity to use off-the shelf IoT sensors.
E.g. Zigbee vibration sensor --> Zigbee hub --> MQTT (IP) trigger to FPP.


At the very least, an ESP32 would be a better choice than an Arduino. So they have WiFI ability and the option for SD card support (compressed FSEQ playback).

[OregonZoo]

I was just looking at the ESP32 controllers as an option. Particularly  the ESP32 quad+ from your pixel store. https://yourpixelstore.com/product/pixel-controller-quad-controller-12v/ 

Maybe I do one of those for each hole and have them all wirelessly networked to the falcon that sends out the show data each time the ESP32 detects a trigger?

Or were you thinking the ESP32 would be installed inside the hole with whatever trigger or vibration sensor, and it would just send the trigger data out to the pi running FPP and it would then play show data?

[Bwinter]

I was just looking at the ESP32 controllers as an option. Particularly  the ESP32 quad+ from your pixel store. https://yourpixelstore.com/product/pixel-controller-quad-controller-12v/

Maybe I do one of those for each hole and have them all wirelessly networked to the falcon that sends out the show data each time the ESP32 detects a trigger?

Or were you thinking the ESP32 would be installed inside the hole with whatever trigger or vibration sensor, and it would just send the trigger data out to the pi running FPP and it would then play show data?

I would put an ESP32C3 (with an appropriate battery and sensor) in each hole.  Using the ESP32-NOW wireless protocol, data from inside each hole (ball sensed or not sensed) could be sent back to a main controller (and from there, you can do whatever you want).

THe ESP32C3 are pretty small, inexpensive, and can be programmed in the Arduino IDE.

[OregonZoo]

I'll order a couple sensors and esp32 controllers and see what I can figure out. 

I don't suppose anyone on here has experience with this kind of build and would be available to hire to do the programming? Or at least get the framework going and I can do with the fine tuning as I dial things in?