[Seph] works for a company that handles ticketing for concerts and special events. One of his primary tasks is to check for counterfeit tickets at the gates of an event. Depending on the venue, this can be mag-stripes, bar codes, or one of several breeds of RFID. Until recently, netbooks coupled with USB readers performed the task. The netbooks weren’t a great solution though – they were expensive, relatively fragile, and took up more space than necessary.
[Seph] had a better idea. He created a ticket validation system using a Raspberry Pi. The Pi sits in a translucent case with a PiGlow RGB LED board. A USB reader (in this case a bar code reader) plugs into one of the Pi’s USB ports. These readers can operate in several modes, including keyboard emulation, which [Seph] chose because it wouldn’t require any driver work.
Using PiGates is so simple even a drummer could handle it. Normally the Pi glows blue. When a ticket is scanned, [Seph’s] python script reads the code and verifies it against an online database.If the ticket is valid, the Pi will glow green. A counterfeit ticket is indicated by flashing red LEDs.
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