Eva Tuecke

Interest Areas

I'm a massive nerd for organizational systems and productivity tools--I have 4 different notion pages for various tracking: atomic habits, mood/health data, time tracking down the minute, and gym progress. I have data from every day going back several years, and I export that data to a .csv file once a quarter to do a quick analysis (I have a bunch of python scripts for identifying trends, making pretty graphs, etc.). All of that is to say--I'm interested in building technology to keep feeding this obsession and materially improve my life.

My first idea was some sort of personal assistant technology (think Jarvis from Iron Man)--for example, a system of cameras and microphones that can be voice activated to track work sessions, record data, and be easily accessed to review past data. It could be used as a physical device in the room for work meetings, to track key insights for later access (think those AI note takers that have been popping up in Zoom calls). Similarly, in a scientific context, the ability to rig up a lab with this system and say "record this experiment"--then have later access to core information--could be incredibly useful.

The main problem I see with this is that it's primarily a software problem--wake word detection, recording videos, parsing text, and later searching that data with some LLM help. The hardware component is just a set of microphones and cameras. Given I have lots of software experience, I want to work on something that's a bit more complicated from a hardware perspective. So while I may integrate some aspects of this idea into the end system I work on, that won't be the direct focus.

Concrete Idea

My goal is to build a multi-purpose system to improve focus--sort of like the personal assistant described above, but with more hardware components. Introducing the Locked-in-inator (context).

Some of the functionality I'm planning:

• Physical Pomodoro timer that can be set with a keypad
• A safe to lock your phone in until the timer is up (alternatively, a pressure sensor that will set off a loud and endless alarm if you pick up your phone... or start reading off your ToDo list for that day from an accompanying app)
• 'Remind me later' button that can be pressed and held to record random thoughts you have while working that would otherwise distract you and send you down an internet rabbit hole (these can also be piped over to an accompanying app for later review)

And some potential extentions:

• Habit tracking box with a set of switches to flip to 'complete' when you've finished that habit for the day, and auto-updates the app
• Screen with display of daily ToDo list
• Focus monitoring with some sort of eye-tracking technology
• "Distract-o-meter" that measures how often you pick up your phone from the machine or how often you stand up while the timer is running
• Reminders every x minutes to stand up a stretch / take a break

Design & Requirements

I turned to ChatGPT and google images for some inspiration on the design of this system. I really like steampunk style boxes with lots of buttons and switches, so was thinking of making it somewhat fit that design style. These are some of the images I found/generated for inspiration:

From here, I determined the exact set of features I want to aim for:

• Wooden box structure with metal accents and gear/clock style design elements
• Little drawer that holds a pressure sensor attached to a wire. This can be taken out and put on the table as a small pad, which can detect the weight of a phone (to stop you from picking it up while studying). This will need it's own on/off switch (either on it, or on the main box).
• Speakers for noise when you violate the phone pickup or for alarm when pomodoro timer goes off. Could also play back the 'record for later' one at a time, sort of like an answering machine (would be super cool to make a wearable watch that can also record random thoughts throughout the day, networked so that you can play them back from the box at the end of the day -- a possible extension if time allows)
• Screen (at least one) to display the Pomodoro timer, with buttons to set on the same face of the cube
• "Record for later" button
• Battery so it can all operate without being plugged in
• Cool to have but might not get done: clock face on one side (could be decorative, or even better could actually move)

Some more project design inspiration for the box itself:

Component Systems

(1) Pomodoro Timer: have a OLED screen that can display timer count downs, along with a set of buttons for setting the timer. Buttons required will be: '+15 minutes', '+30 minutes', '+60 minutes', 'start', 'clear'. I would also like to add another set of buttons that can change the 'mode' to show focus statistics (e.g. number of hours focused that day/week/month). From this, will add two more buttons: 'clock' and 'statistics'.

(2) On/Off + Battery: an on/off switch somewhere on the box and to add a battery to power it.

(3) Pressure Sensor: a pressure sensor that can detect the weight of a phone, this should have a separate on/off switch so that it can be turned out after it's taken out of the drawer and set up.