No, we haven't used LCD's before. None of the group has. The entire class is this project (you choose), but one person has taken VHDL where they had to control a display. I have briefly used a microcontroller in a Digital Signal Processing class and a simulator in a Logic class. I know C++ and Java well but have never done any PIC programming. Done assembly programming in the Logic class. I will look at that tomorrow.
Are you saying use an AVR instead of a PIC or can a PIC be used to control everything?
Thanks for the help so far.