We recently tackled a similar project and looked at the sort of problems
you're talking about.  Our approach, in the end, was to take a hardware
approach.  We avoided using software and all the inherent problems.  We
mounted a weather monitoring system outside of a visitor's center (on
Dartmoor, in England).  The weather station we used was the WS-2000 from
RainWise (www.rainwise.com).  This collects local weather conditions and
then sends them by a radio link to a receiving unit indoors.  We used our
Puppeteer system to collect and store the data and then displayed the
values on small 4-digit LCD displays.  The displays were mounted on a large
graphic which provided background information, text, with diagrams. We can
display weekly or daily averages and use different units (millimetres or
inches of rain, for instance).

It works well, because the small displays blend in well with the written
text on the graphic; there's no user interface as such.  It looks good with
the live update of information.

There was some discussion during the project about mounting another system
in the town that lies in the lee of Dartmoor, to contrast the weather there
with that on top of the moor.  We also wanted to link the system to the
Internet, to allow access to the weather data for online users; Rainwise
encourage this.  These have been pencilled in for a future update.

If you want to talk more about this, off-list, feel free to email me.

At 10:50 22/08/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>We are considering using WeatherBug/Weathernet products in an exhibit.
>Has anyone used these services in a museum/science center? Good/bad
>experiences? One of our concerns is the ability to customize the
>interface to link to exactly the data our client wants, some of which
>is not managed by NOAA.  Another is the ability to lock down the
>application so visitors can't go elsewhere, and how bulletproof the
>software will be in a museum setting.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Lisa Friedlander
>Split Rock Studios, Museum Outfitters
>2071 Gateway Blvd.
>St. Paul, MN 55112
>
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Jeff Graham
Ansae Ltd
+44 1453 843033
www.ipuppeteer.com

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