Beginner Arduino related Questions regarding what hardware to buy..

thanks YT2095,  that was really helpful. I have narrowed down my search of parts as it can be seen below-

I have decided to go for Maxbotix Ultrasonic Rangefinder - LV-EZ1 - EZ-1 for distance measurement. (Analog or PWM, still trying to figure out)

For 3 axis accelerometer, I am going with Triple Axis Accelerometer Breakout - ADXL335 (3 analog out)

For GPS module, I am confused between (and can't select) Adafruit Ultimate GPS Breakout - 66 channel w/10 Hz updates - MTK3339 chipset     and    Adafruit GPS logger shield kit - v1.1 with EM-406A GPS Module

                     I want to sync the GPS location and velocity data with the accelerometer and distance data at the same time and location, so I am not sure how to implement this and write data from all the sensor at the same                         time,  so I will try to use just one data logger for all of them, but if I cannot than I will use the built in GPS data loggers in the above models for GPS data and use a seperate logger for the other sensors (distance,                     accelerometer, hall effect).

So the other data logger is here - http://www.adafruit.com/products/243

and if I use two seperate loggers I will need to time stamp the other logger (one that does not log GPS), for which I have selected http://www.adafruit.com/products/255

I will power them all up with 6 AA battery pack

I will use all of this on Arduino UNO, and for extra space I will either use a protoboard shield or a breadboard.

Can you suggest me, which one is better to use out of a GPS shield or a GPS breakoutboard for my configuration.

Also which GPS is better from the two models above for my project?

And is there any way I can log data from all the sensors in one logger in one loop? I want my data to appear closely like this (in various column, seperated by tabs for easy input in excel, GPS data already parsed from the NMEA sentences) -

Time     Date     Longitude     Latitude     Velocity     X-axis     Y-Axis     Z-axis     Distance     Hall-effect    

I have to set all the sensors on same update frequency for this to work-

Also, is this too much to ask to a data logger, in other words will it have out of memory issues (i.e. buffer is full)?

So many new questions for you guys. Thanks a lot for your help.

From what I understand (others please correct me if I'm wrong)...

* The data logging functionality of the GPS logger shield is an SD card.

* You can write any data you want, in any format, onto that SD card. I don't think the logging is automatically done by the hardware.

-> and in that case, you'd only need one SD card unit in the project - so if it's part of the GPS shield you're buying you won't need to also buy a separate data logging shield.

And because the SD card is in a regular FAT format, you can then stick that into your computer and read the data like you would read any file.

So if you write your code such that the Arduino reads all the values you need, and then writes a single line to the SD card that includes all the values, you should be in good shape.

If you write the data in text format and include some quotation marks and commas, you could have your project build a CSV file that you can then later import into a spreadsheet.

If you're adding timestamps, I'm wondering if you might need a real time clock (RTC) module. Or I suppose if you have a display (like the inexpensive 16x2 LCD), then you could allow the user to set the time. ps on that - the Arduino.cc site added a library to make it easy to run the LCD using just a few wires now.

And if you're totally new to Arduino, I recommend taking a few hours to go through a tutorial like this Oomlout one: http://www.oomlout.com/a/products/ardx/

Good luck! Sounds like you have a fun project to work on!

Cheers,

-Nico

edit, ps: I have an Ethernet shield with SD card, and the SD card on it is accessed independently, that's what I'm basing my above assumptions on, it's not all just guessing - I only make up some of the things some of the time, really!

From what I understand (others please correct me if I'm wrong)...

* The data logging functionality of the GPS logger shield is an SD card.

* You can write any data you want, in any format, onto that SD card. I don't think the logging is automatically done by the hardware.

-> and in that case, you'd only need one SD card unit in the project - so if it's part of the GPS shield you're buying you won't need to also buy a separate data logging shield.

And because the SD card is in a regular FAT format, you can then stick that into your computer and read the data like you would read any file.

So if you write your code such that the Arduino reads all the values you need, and then writes a single line to the SD card that includes all the values, you should be in good shape.

If you write the data in text format and include some quotation marks and commas, you could have your project build a CSV file that you can then later import into a spreadsheet.

If you're adding timestamps, I'm wondering if you might need a real time clock (RTC) module. Or I suppose if you have a display (like the inexpensive 16x2 LCD), then you could allow the user to set the time. ps on that - the Arduino.cc site added a library to make it easy to run the LCD using just a few wires now.

And if you're totally new to Arduino, I recommend taking a few hours to go through a tutorial like this Oomlout one: http://www.oomlout.com/a/products/ardx/

Good luck! Sounds like you have a fun project to work on!

Cheers,

-Nico

edit, ps: I have an Ethernet shield with SD card, and the SD card on it is accessed independently, that's what I'm basing my above assumptions on, it's not all just guessing - I only make up some of the things some of the time, really!