Welcome to my final project tracker

Introducing the wake up buddy!

As a rower I need to wake up at 5:30 am every morning. Especially here at MIT, with all the super late night study sessions and P-set grinds, I often find myself not sleeping much and struggling to wake up every morning. Hence why I am motivated to design something to help me out with that.


The design is to make a device to open my blinds in the morning and play a little wake up tune. It will either sync to my alarm on my phone, detect sunlight, or view the first event on my Google calender. The complexity of the project will highly depend on how the weeks go for me and what I am able to learn. Theres lots of room for iteration and creativity.....

The components will consist of a sort of gear to bind to the chain of the blinds, a motor to control the opening and closing, likely a ESP32 for wifi connection, a light sensor to detect daylight, and a speaker to play a little song.




(I will add images of my CAD design soon)

Week 2 (Computer-Controlled Cutting):

The vinyl cutter would be cool to add some decals to the final product. I don't really see myself using the laser cutter, but potentially to cut a casing for the components.

Week 3 (Embedded Programming):

This is going to be huge for the project. I struggled a lot with some issues on the simulation software when it came to the ESP32 and wifi connection, but hopefully with the real thing it won't cause as much trouble. I'll need to program the system to control the motor and communicate with input devices (whatever I decide those to be).

Week 4 (3D Scanning & Printing):

This will also be quite integral. I will likely need to make the custom gears on the 3D printer. I could also utilize the 3D scanner to scan the chain and make it a little easier to CAD (something I am not really sure how to do exactly).

Week 5 (Electronics Design):

This device will require a PCB which I will use the skills from this week to design.

Week 6 (Electronics Production):

Same as electronics design week.

Week 7 (Molding and Casting):

While super fun, I don't see this week contributing to my final project very much.

Week 8 (Input Devices):

This week for my options in input devices, I found that a phototransistor would be most appropriate for my final project. In the case that I decide to go in the light detection route to activate the opening of the blinds, this week's project taught me how to set up and code that sensor.

Week 9 (Output Devices):

This week for my options in ouput devices, I found that a servo motor would be most appropriate for my final project. When I want to move the blinds a servo motor would be good. This week allowed me to get to know the device and see how well it could work for my project

Week 10 (Computer-controlled Machining):

This week I didn't really do anything that I hadnt already before. I kinda just made something fun unrelated to my final project so no much to report here. If anything it helped hone in some skills on the CNC and on Fusion that could potentially help later on.