Hi,
My senior project was a radiation based random number generator.  A fair
portion of my background is in high voltage power supplies (x-ray to
200kV) so the 900 volt supply for the Geiger tube was easy.  I used two
PIC16C77s.  One handled data logging/management and the other handled
user interface.  My advisor was a specialist in multi-processor
architectures so I thought I'd get extra consideration for attacking a
multi-processor project.  Probably helped a little.

I didn't want to fight with programming hardware so I used a Picstart
Plus.  I also used the CCS compiler.  Had a few problems there but
nothing I couldn't work around.  The price/performance ratio was almost
exactly what I needed.  They have built in libraries for driving the
simple LCD's we typically use in these projects that probably saved me a
couple of weeks of development time.  Several of the list members offer
very inexpensive or free compilers and programming hardware.  If you
have a highly limited budget you might try them.

For a senior project you are going to get *lots* of extra points for an
on schedule completion and for a clean/solid presentation.  Get it
done!  Don't fight with limited hardware capabilities on a onesie
project.  Pick a controller with  substantially more capabilities than
you really need.  I liked the 16C77s and wound up using a lot of the
built in features.  I would recommend something at that level.  It's
well supported, readily available and very inexpensive.

In order of difficulty your sensors will likely be temperature,
pressure, wind speed and humidity.  Temperature and pressure are
straight A/D interfaces with off the shelf sensors and a minimum of
signal conditioning.  Wind speed can be done in a variety of ways some
of which are projects in themselves.  I don't know much about the
current state of the art in humidity sensors but I remember humidity
being tougher to do than it looks.

Incidentally, my project blew the doors off of everything else that was
concurrently presented and they use it as an example of *how it's done*
now.

Good luck with your project and don't be shy about asking the list for
help.  That's what it's here for.

Best regards,
Dave Minkler

Alina Mothusi wrote:
>
> Hi there I'm trying to build a weather station for my design project could
> you please help me out in terms of what kind of PIC microcontrollers should I
> use for the project. This is for my senior design project so your quick
> response will be appreciated.
> thanks
>
> Mothusi
>
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