Handheld attendance recording system

[streetlifez]

This is how it suppose to works. Design a hand held compact system, with keypad, where student's attendance can be keyed in. Later the lecturer may download the data to his computer to be updated in the online attendance system. Anyone here can guide what should I start with 1st?

 

[horace1]

couple of ideas
1. you could use a microcontroller with a USB device (slave) interface. as the attendance data is entered it could be stored in an SRAM such as the Rantron FM33256. The device is then plugged into a PC USB port and the data downloaded to a database.
2. use a microcontroller with a USB host interface. A USB flash drive is plugged in and attendence data written to a file on the drive. When finished the flash drive is plugged into a PC USB port and the data downloaded into a database.

 

[streetlifez]

thanks for the ideas. but this would be the interfacing part that Im gonna encounter right as I have to download the data to the pc. could you provide me the code for the interfacing part?

 

[horace1]

have a look at the Microchip USB design center
**broken link removed**

the code for driving the USB is free and there are lots of application programs (both for the microcontroller and the host PC) you can adapt
the software can be downloaded from
**broken link removed**

 

[streetlifez]

hi, what microcontroller should I use in this case? I believe 8051 is doesn't have enough of storage for me to store the data. In this case I should be using PIC is it? but which model?

 

[horace1]

I have recently developed a number of small USB based projects both USB device (e.g. plugged into a PC) and USB host (e.g. to read/write files on a USB flash drive) applications.
The microcontroller used was a PIC24FJ64GB002
PIC24FJ64GB002

it comes in a 28 pin SDIP package so it is easy to build PCBs - we use a router but fitting a 28 pin socket it can be built using a breadboard.