Torture Alarm

Alarm that uses light in conjunction with other, more physical methods to wake a user, such as an annoying buzzer, with a boxing glove and/or a water jet being the next steps.

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Why this project?

Seva, our main character, has trouble sleeping when the room is too bright, but difficulty waking up if the room is too dark. This is an issue, as lights in cities are very bright, so there is always a trade-off between falling asleep and waking up. If only there was a way to have a light activate a short time before the alarm!

What it does

Surprise, surprise, it activates a light before the actual alarm triggers. We also envision other, more physical methods of alarm for mornings when waking up is particularly difficult. These include a boxing glove hitting your face, and a water jet sprayed in your direction. We also have an app UI to set the alarm from a website. Now Seva will have no trouble with waking up!

How we built it

The hardware side is built using an Arduino Due, and uses a shield board, a bread board, an RTC chip for accurate time keeping, a buzzer, and a relay to control the USB powered, bright LED light. (USB light is connected by a USB extension that was hacked apart.)

Challenges we ran into

On the Arduino side:

  • Code sometimes refuses to compile, throwing errors on every function (issue is not reproducible)
  • RTC chip had the battery inserted the wrong way
  • RTC chip only works when plugged into I^2^C0 and not I^2^C1 On the Taipy side:

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Basic functionality achieved
  • Did not die
  • Created an alarm that is accessible to pretty much all members of the population (design for accessibility!)

What we learned

Besides learning how to operate with Taipy, use an Arduino Due with a breadboard, setting up an RTC, buzzer, relay, and the LED light, as well as finally understanding what female wires are needed for, most importantly we learned the power of friendship! Our character arcs defined the plot of the hackathon.

What's next for Torture Alarm

The next step would be to include the boxing glove and water jet in this project. Although the code for controlling the punching glove was written, improving it by including the punching glove itself would be great (not to encourage violence but to promote waking up, of course).

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