Help with Community Service Project for High School Students

[kmemmons]

Members of our community posed a challenge to my engineering design/electronics high school students: Design and build a display sign for downtown that incorporates images of the town when it was first incorporated in the 1800's and include a push button audio track that plays back sounds from the time period.

No other parameters were offered, just a "get it done". So, I am wondering what you all think about using the arduino uno with a wave shield and adding a solar panel and a lipo to handle powering this sign. Being in Michigan, this sign needs to tolerate a wide range of temperatures and precipitation.

I like the idea of using a build kit project instead of a ready to go voice recorder so the students experience as much design as possible and this looks like it might be a good intro into arduinos.

Please share your thoughts.

Kevin Emmons
PLTW Teacher
Clarkston High School

[adafruit]

you'll need to get a good waterproof box, we have waterproof buttons that you can use that should stand up to abuse - but its probably not going to be something that can be solar powered nicely so you should try to get a power drop. either way someone will probably need to maintain it, check every month for issues (no way around this no matter how much you plan)