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General project discussion / help
By tedx
I am trying to create a button system for a quiz show. I've seen many systems out there, but I need 8 buttons, and most DIY systems I've seen (except the wireless ones) cap out at 4. I am by no means adept with the Arduino, but I do play around with it. The best I've come up with so far is to use the Game Show presenter software which takes keyboard 0-9 inputs. I've gotten an arduino Leonardo to ace as my keyboard (because I couldn't figure out how to make my uno act as a keyboard). What I want to do now is attach the Big Dome Push Buttons to the Leonardo via RJ11 cable so that it will look to the game show software as an input from a keyboard.

My question is, with the big dome push button, can I use it unpowered. Meaning, If I don't care about having the LED lit, can I just connect two wires to it and have the "push" registered if the button isn't powered?

Apologize in advance if I'm making no sense at all, and, if there's a better way, I'm open. Also, I have nothing against powering the 8 buttons, I just don't know how to do it.