From the Foundry: This project will be to investigate how to track the weather as well as how accurate the predictions that we rely on as truth are. Part of this project will be for me to use technology I have at home (a RCX brick with sensors sticking out my room’s windows) to track the real temperature and light level of the area right outside my house during the same period of time that I’m keeping track of the weather reports and what really happened during those days. Once the various data collections are uploaded to my Mac I’ll compare and analyze the data to see what I can learn about the accuracy and real-time weather patterns over the course of the collection period (3-5 days). The second component of the project will be me researching how the data collection works for NOAA and understanding how their systems work. I’ll also research the way you’d go about setting up your own weather station at your house that feeds into the network of stations.

Planning

  • Rubric: The rubric that I’ll be graded based on.

Planning Subcomponents

  • Keynote plan: This is the plan that I used to form my Keynote off of.
  • Keynote bullet points: Each line in this document has been translated into the bullet points of my Keynote.
  • Data analysis: Here is the plan that I used to loosely form the way that I performed the analysis of my weather data.
  • Program Outline: This outlines the code for the Robolab VI that I downloaded to the RCX for the actual data logging.

Research

  • Cloud Types Notes: These notes are from when I researched cloud types. This was (if I remember correctly) the first thing that I did for this weather project.
  • PWS for WU: I used WeatherUnderground to get my professional weather reports for this project. These are notes on the Personal Weather Station program that they have to give their users (myself proudly included) potentially better weather reports. This whole project, in a way, centers around this.
  • SIB: I could never find definitive and trustworthy sources on the equipment that the professionals use to track weather data. The Systems Integration Branch is in charge of the technical support for the equipment and buildings. So, once I read up on the branch I felt like that question from my project proposal was as answered as it will ever get.

Data

Images/ Screenshots

  • Code Screenshot: This is a screenshot that shows what the code for data collection is.

Conclusions

  • Report Accuracy: This is the text that essentially answers the driving question of this project.
  • Temperature Offset: This is the text that explains why my temperature readings are off from those of WeatherUnderground.
  • Final Conclusion: This is my final conclusion on the center question of how accurate the reports are and why.

Deliverables

  • Keynote: This is the final deliverable that was produced for my project.

Reflections and such

  • Reflection: My final reflection for this project.
  • Bibliography: For you to learn what sources I used for the research component of this project.