Sr Design Project: Mailbox LED Notif w/ PIC Microcontroller

[soccerkingjb]

I am currently working on my senior design project. My idea is to create a system that will detect when a person has mail in their mailbox and notify that person by transmitting a signal to a box in the house that will light an LED. I am planning on using a PARALAX motion sensor in the mailbox and a Cherry position sensor on the outside of the mailbox to detect the position of the flag. My question is on what type of microcontroller to use to do this. I was thinking of using a PIC but have no idea on which microcontroller to get. Any help would e appreciated.

 

[dbougan]

I did the exact same thing for my junior design project. However we used a basic magnetic sensor to detect the flag, an XBEE to communicate wirelessly with another module, and we used IR transmitters/detectors to detect if there was mail. Good luck to you!

To answer your question, choose a chip which will let you program it in your language of choice, and one which has a suitable number or inputs/outputs.

We used the Atmega32. It supports C, had 8 A/D converts (which we used for the 8 IR detectors), and a simple USART which made working with the wireless communicator device easy.