Whiteboard Assignment Alarm
Project Description
In this final project, we were asked to design and create a physical prototype to solve an everyday problem. Using an arduino to control our prototype, we needed to include a physical output and a sensor-based input for the user to interact with. The scenario that motivated our group's prototype is forgetting assignments that are coming up, and keeping class requirements in order. While there are apps and calendars that can keep track of due dates and notify you of upcoming due dates, our physical prototype is meant to be much harder to ignore. Its physical presence is also meant to act as an alert for assignments that gradually increases in urgency up until the last minute.
Concept Sketches
When sketching, it was hard to come up with ideas that really utilized the arduino sensor's potential while also being realistic in what my group can achieve in the limited time we had to create our prototype. I kept running into problems of drawing ideas too complex to wire up on a single board, or not taking into consideration the limitations of things like the speaker or the stepper motor. Originally my group wanted to implement my third sketch, the board game timer, but we found it had far too many complex parts to attach to the board. In the end, we decided to go with a sketch that my group member Amandeep created, which was a whiteboard that would light up when a class has an unfulfilled due date approaching.
Storyboards
Storyboarding helped refine our ideas of how we wanted to alert the user of upcoming due dates. The idea that we decided to base our interactions on was that it was important to make sure that far away due dates don't seem as urgent as due dates that are today.
Final Product Description & Demo
Our final product is a prototype of a whiteboard, with green, blue, yellow, and red LED lights that each correspond to a class. There is also a supersonic sensor that senses when the user is near so that it can turn on only when needed, and a buzzer to add to the urgency of a rapidly approaching due date. When each class has a due date, the LED will light up in various modes depending on how far away the due date is if the user is standing in front of the whiteboard. When it's greater than two weeks away, the LED is off. When the due date is between one and two weeks, it stays on. When the due date is within a week, the LED will flash repeatedly. When the due date is today, the LED will flash repeatedly and the buzzer will go off in two tones that correspond to each class.
If I had more time to work on this project, I would have added an interaction to either temporarily silence the board or to mark an assignment as done so that the alert will stop flashing or buzzing when the user has already handed their assignment in. I also regret that the lights were not super visible in the final prototype because of the way that we hid the breadboard and the wires. Overall, I'm still proud of our prototype, I think that we put together a good circuit despite none of our group having much arduino experience.
