Week 3
Refine Final Project

Seven-Day Alarm Clock


Overview
The main feature of the alarm clock is the seven-day alarm system. The goal of this system is to allow the user to set a different alarm time for each day of the week, to avoid having to reset the alarm each night. The clock must also have a user-friendly interface for setting the alarms and displaying the time.


Design
The alarm clock system will be composed of four major components:
  • Real time clock (RTC) chip
  • Microcontroller
  • Input Buttons
  • LED display

    The time will be kept by the RTC chip. The microcontroller will read the current time and display it on the LED displays. The microcontroller will also keep track of the seven alarms and interface to the input buttons to allow the user to set the current time and the alarm times. A block diagram of the alarm clock system is shown below:



    One of the major challenges in this project will be designing a user-friendly interface for the seven-alarm system. My first idea for this interface was a slider switch that could either be set to a day of the week (to set the alarm) or to RUN or OFF mode. I think a better implementation might be to have push buttons for each day of the week, so that alarms for multiple days could be set at the same time (for a T/Th and M/W/F class schedule). The alarm clock must also include all the functionality of a basic alarm clock, including an OFF mode, a snooze alarm, and an AM/PM indicator. Furthermore, I think it would be useful to have an Override alarm that would replace the existing alarm for that particular day to easily accommodate a temporary change in someone's schedule.


    Implementation
    Some of the steps required to build this alarm clock are:
  • Develop microcontroller code to read the time, set and monitor the alarms, and display the time
  • Design an electrical circuit to interface the electrical components to the microcontroller
  • Make a PCB that implements this design
  • Purchase parts
  • Build a case for the alarm clock with holes for input buttons and the LED display