PRE2024 3 Group21
Group Members
| Member | Student Number | Program |
|---|---|---|
| Stefan Baltac | 1808877 | Electrical Engineering |
| Octavian Astefanei | 1836374 | Electrical Engineering |
| Kerim Gjergjizi | 1813420 | Electrical Engineering |
Problem statement and goals
Traditional alarm clocks work, as everyone, knows by making a sound at a certain time during the day and having them be turned off by some kind of button (or screen movement in the case of smartphones). However, in certain times, if for example the time at which one needs to wake up is not optimal, the probability of the alarm clock being successful drops. Due to sleep inertia one can either completely miss the alarm, subconsciously turn it off (due to muscle memory) etc.
The main goal is to design and prototype an alarm clock such that the risk of the aforementioned scenario is minimised by improving upon the preexisting knowledge base on this topic.
Planning
| Task | Responsible | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research | Stefan, Octavian, Kerim | X | X | |||||
| Interviews | Stefan, Octavian, Kerim | X | X | |||||
| Concept | Octavian, Kerim | X | ||||||
| Development | Stefan | X | ||||||
| Prototyping | Stefan, Octavian | X | X |
Approach
- Research if first gathered about common interactions with the alarm clock that are currently in use (smartphones) and how users interact with various features (such as snoozing), common causes of sleep inertia, and what activities require a higher state of wakefulness which could be further leveraged.
- Interviews are conducted with the target group on points from the research or created hypothesis which should be expanded upon. The interviews shall be performed anonymously where an interviewer asks a set of predefined question and the transcript/recording of the conversation is stored/disposed of later in an appropriate way.
- A concept design of the prototype is created where the list of requirements and features is define.
- The development phase follows where a technical definition of an the example prototype is created.
- Lastly the prototype is assembled and tested to measure the validity of the conclusions.
State of the Art
CLOCKY - A robot alarm clock that makes you go after it to turn off.
TERMINIGHTOR - An app that makes the user scan an NFC chip (such as any access card) in order to turn of the alarm
QRALARM - An app that makes the user scan a QR code in order to turn off the alarm.
I CAN'T WAKE UP! - An app that makes the user solve some puzzles in order to turn off the alarm.
The first have movement as the action that has been extrapolated in order to make turning off the alarm more difficult. Considering that movement is a rather basic function of the human body and it doesn't necessitate being awake it could be argued that there could be a chance of those certain tasks being done subconsciously. The robot however does have the benefit of needing the user to go after it, but depending on how far the robot goes or if the pattern is predictable. And if it can go far that may also not be a good option if there are multiple people living in the house.
The last chooses capacity in random activities as the threshold for determining if the user is awake, while some of them aren't far from the previous criticism, such as the one requiring the user to shake the device, some rely more on the metal capacity of the user in the moment. While a good idea it is perhaps not such a good option to have the use solve 6 math equations to turn off the alarm, as it may end up being rather inconvenient. It is the same logic as the best way to wake up a person being to have a raid siren make noise for 10 minutes, but that would not be exactly a desirable solution.
User study
- Users of interest are: mainly university students and working people.