dual Temp, humidity, and light, display and monitor

Projects General Guidance
1

I am an Animal Control Officer and one of my top complaints in the summer is People leaving their pets in cars on hot days. It can be a criminal offence here and we have the right to enter a vehicle if the conditions are life threatening.

What I would like to do if use Arduino to make a device that monitors the ambient outside temperature, humidity, and light level. As well as a second temperature from a long probe that I can insert through a open window or door seal. I want to be able see these values in real time on a LCD as well as have them all recorded. and I want an alarm that I can set on the fly (up and down arrows on the device.)

I am hoping you guys can suggest which Arduino would be best. what sensors to use (something I can get certified would be great) like DS18B20 - TO92. and this http://www.brewershardware.com/12-Temperature-Sensor-DS18B20.html for the probe.

Also looking for links and suggestions on programming something like this. This is a remote device so I cant connect to any network (gsm is not feasible) so I was thinking I would make it write the values to a SD card. Maybe in the form of a CSV? and I want time stamps so a constant clock might be necessary.

I am game for anyone that wants to help out and I thank you very much. This is my first Arduino project but defiantly not my last.

2

I wouldn't want you breaking into my car based on readings from some "home-built" gizmo. I would assume the equipment would need to be be laboratory-calibrated and certified.

That said, you can get various sensors and I'd suggest prototyping/breadboarding one function/measurement at a time before integrating them all together. Likewise, design and test your time-stamping, display, alarm, and data-storage functions separately before integrating everything together. Any one measurement is fairly simple (once you understand the particular sensor), but with all these modules/functions it's not going to be a quick project...