Step 1: Brainstorming
The first thing that I did on my project was brainstorm what I was going to create. I knew that I wanted to make an alarm clock that worked in multiple different ways to wake you up. I took this information and made a list of the different features that I would want in an ideal alarm clock.
- I want to be able to control lights to adjust myself to the daylight
- I want to be able to play music to wake me up instead of a loud buzzing noise
- I want to be able to surround the sound around me so I can wake up no matter where my head is
- I want to be able to start to change the temperature of my room as I wake up so it is more comfortable to get out of bed
- I want to be able to set the alarm to go off at certain times on certain days so I don’t have to manually set it every night
Step 2: Prototype 1
The next step was to create a prototype. I had only a rough idea of what I wanted to create, so I decided to make a sketch. This was a very rough sketch of the basic principle of what I was planning to make. I decided to combine a traditional old fashioned alarm clock with a switch in lights that would produce a sudden blast of light when the alarm is turned off. I thought that this would be an effective way of waking up.
Step 3: Researching
After I had my rough idea, I decided to put a little more research into my idea. I read a few articles which I will mention on my blog about how sleep affects your body and mind and I learned that when you wake up to a loud blaring noise that you don’t enjoy hearing, it affects your mood and makes it harder for you to start your day on the right side of the bed. To look a little bit more into this, I contacted a man named Steve, who is the owner of Clinical Sleep Solutions on Lonsdale and scheduled an interview with him. Steve is a respiratory therapist who works with clients with sleep apnea, a condition that affects the respiratory system during sleep. He told me that the main factors of a good nights sleep were the quality and length of sleep. People who can have a deep sleep of 6-8 hours through the entire night without waking up end up with more energy for the oncoming day than those who wake up every hour tossing and turning.
Step 4: Prototype 2
Now that I had some more knowledge of what to create, it was time to start building. The first thing that I focused on was trying to figure out how to have the alarm be an alarm and go off at a certain time. I decided to use a 24 hour timer to do this. For those who don’t know what that is, a 24 hour timer is a device that plugs into a power socket that lets people control what time they want their electronic devices such as lamps or fans to go off at. I initially tried this using a simplistic timer that allowed me to choose a single time to go off at, but I decided that I would be better off using a programmable timer where I could choose not only what time I wanted it to go off at, but also what days of the week. I then attached a power strip to the timer so I could add multiple items at once. Next, I added a set of speakers that would play music when turned on and connected to an mp3 player. I also added a set of lights that could be strung around a bed or room, which can create a more pleasant atmosphere to wake up to. Next, I attached a small lamp to the power strip, which created a slightly more aggressive light source to wake up to.
Step 5: Revisions
After I had created my prototype, it was time to get feedback and revise. I showed my prototype to Steve from Clinical sleep solutions and he told me that he thought it was a good idea and could work well. He suggested to have something tactical, such as a vibrating sensor in a pillow. I decided that I wanted to control the temperature of the room instead, because I thought that that would be more useful for what I wanted to do. I tested my alarm a couple of times and found that while the sound feature worked, it would be better if the lights were a bit more intense.
Step 6: Final Prototype
I added a heater/fan to the prototype, and decided to organize the whole thing into a block that can be placed under or behind a bed. The speakers could go on either sides, like shown here, and I added an additional light that can be positioned based on how intense the user wanted the light to be. To present my work, as you can see here, I created my poster board to look like a bed frame so I could show how my product could work around it. When I tested this final prototype, I woke up a lot easier than the first. It was very helpful to have a heater turn on because my room is the temperature of a freezer 24/7. All in all, I’m very proud of what I have created and can see myself using it often in the future.