Introduction and literature review

Transcription

1 Introduction and literature review Our group studied the phenomena of waking up in different situations. This study was done so as to reach to an alarm clock that awakes the user without causing any stress. Our research showed that the conventional way that we use to wake up, which is by the lousy noise of the alarm clock or a loud radio transmission, causes the body to stimulate the production of adrenalin and stress hormones. These hormones leave the body in a fight or flight state. In this state, the body will prepare itself to fight or run for safety. This way is not the best way to wake up; literally the body wakes up ready for war. Also, being exposed to large noises can disrupt the sleep patterns causing increased stress throughout the day. It has also been shown that people who live in busy areas, that have houses facing noisy traffic are more likely to be depressed. Noise interference during sleep is detrimental to the everyday health of humans. [1], [2] Another human factor to consider is the internal biological clock that each person has. The human biological clock is not very accurate and needs to be reset every now and again. So, if the user s sleep pattern is disrupted by an alarm clock everyday, his biological clock will confuse between day and night causing sleep disorder. More than 100 million Americans are unable to receive sufficient sleep, this is a large amount of the American population which calls for a big change in the way they wake up. [3], [4] The problem of the used designs is that it depends on sounds which will cause the body as mentioned above to wake up stressfully. Carter discuss the after-effects which intense and disruptive noise have on a person and how they can change a person s mood, and performance on reaction time and memory tasks [1]. Another problem with the nowadays alarm clocks is that they are complicated to use since it has a couple of buttons for several functions; they depend more on the knowledge in the head in these designs. In these alarm clocks, mode errors are frequently made as the same button is usually used for more than a mode, for example the radio, alarm-radio and alarm-buzzer button. As emphasized in our survey, the conventional 9 volt back up battery will not work when we expect it to work, so we need to find an alternative solution for that too. Nowadays, because of the busy lifestyle of most people, they need to stay late and wake up early so they need a system that encourages them to wake up energetically. Nowadays alarm clocks do not solve the problem. They may wake up the user a couple of times but after that, the user will just turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep unconsciously. Even when the user manages to wake up, the user will suffer of stress throughout the entire day. Our design uses a natural approach to this problem. It depends on calm and natural approaches. For humans to have their circadian rhythms reset it requires the use of light [5] [9]. This reset will help the body to change its sleep pattern everyday depending on the users sleep hours. The alarm clock will simulate the dawn light in the morning and will fade music from the user preferred CD. We are confident that the JINK clock is a revolutionary invention since it will help the users to wake up in a natural way similar to people centuries ago when they used to wake up by the light of the dawn and the relaxing 1

2 sounds of the environment. Noise pollution, the biological clock and human response to light are all very important factors to consider when designing an alarm clock that must provide an easy awaking environment. The way in which nature intended on waking up human beings is by light; a light source in the morning (the sun rising) is detected by the eyes and thus sends a signal to the brain, informing the user s brain that it is time to wake up. The JINK clock will be designed to mimic this natural awakening process by having two power outlets that connect to either a reading lamp, a room lamp, or both. Connecting light sources to the clock will allow the user to wake up naturally to light, as the JINK clock will fade in the lights connected slowly to perfectly simulate sunrise. There will also be an optional remote light switch with infra-red (IR) receiver that replaces the original light switch in the room and will have the capability of receiving a signal from the JINK clock, fading in the room lights in the ceiling. This switch will be an option for those users with more money and greater performance requirements. Human requirements and task analysis Human requirements This alarm clock is used in cases where it is required from the user to wake up at a time that interups his biological clock, i.e the user needs to wake up in 6 to 8 hours. The user then sets up the time he desires to be awaken by the alarm clock, then he selects either is he wants to be awaken by light, the CD player or the radio and then he can insert his favorite cd in the cd player. As you can see, even that most of the knowledge is in the world, the user still has to be able to read and able to follow instructions. To keep our alarm clock in a reasonable cost range, we had to omit features from the first draft. For example, our first draft had a lamp integrated with the alarm clock, the final design does not have a lamp, instead it has two outlets and two infrared emitters. We can use the outlets and the infrared emitters to use the lamps and lights in the user s room. Therefore, one limitation for this alarm clock is the shortage of a lamp. Another limitation for this system is that the CD player has to be open manually due to the large cost of implementing a device to open it by a control remote. The outlets are put in the safely in the back to prevent kids from trying to penetrate objects in them causing electrucion (la corriente). The awakening by light is the healthier way to wake up since it stimulates the dawn and the body replies to the dawn by waking up the body in a normal stress less way. Task Analysis In appendix A, there is a hierarchical decomposition for the usage of this system. In this hierarchical decomposition the user desires to wake up at 8:00 n the morning. 2

3 As you can see from figure (1), this task is very easy, at first the user sets up the time he desires to wake up, then he chooses which mode he wants to wake up to, they are, light mode only, light & CD player mode, light & radio mode, CD player mode only and radio mode only. It should be emphasized that the alarm clock would not work if no mode is chosed, so to eliminate mode errors, our alarm clock will make a confirmation sound after the time and the mode are chosen. Alternative solutions The first solution we came up was a device that will induce gradually light from an integrated lamp and there is no noise. The problem with this solution is that the integrated lamp will increase the cost unnecessary since everyone has a light source in his room. The second disadvantage with this solution is that there is no redundancy in this system. The second solution that the group considered is similar to the first one but now it has outlets to connect lamps and it has a redundancy system which releases molecules of good odours in the ambient. In this solution we took care of the lamp but the odour system came out to be not that effective. According to our survey, less than 10% of the users wake up by smell. So we should consider another alternative. Finally, we came with our last design, the JINK clock. This alarm clock has a couple of more buttons than the nowadays average alarm clock without trading off its simplicity. It has a large display; black background with green fonts since it gives the best contrast in night. It has rubberized patches at the bottom so that it does not slip easily. It has two infrared emitters on the sides. These emitters turn on or off the lights in the room by integrating it in the main switch for the room as shown in figure (2) (Apendix B). The last solution has two alternatives; with a CD player or without a CD player. This option was considered so that the user may buy the one that is more suitable for his needs and more cost effective. Project Activities and Evaluations Project Activities 3

4 Figure (4): Time line for the activities of the team. At first, we designated each member to make research about a specific topic. After one week, we met again and we discussed the material gathered by each member. We used different sources to come up with the ideal alarm clock; we used websites, journals and in a later phase we will use the information gathered by our survey. Then, we suggested some solutions and we concluded with a main design for our alarm clock. After the research was done and we had a starting design, we did one survey (see appendix C) from which we noticed that our design needed more improvement. To understand what type of alarm clock would be effective in successfully waking a person, without effecting their mood for the rest of the day. According to this survey, which took place Monday Sept. 24 th at Tartu College, 76% of the students have problems waking up in the morning, and more than 25% of this group of students experience a mildly stressful day as a result. We changed features in the alarm clock suggested from our survey such as the integrated lamp; we noticed from our survey that most people has a lamp on their bedside, this improvement in our design will lower the cost of the system. Also, we noticed from our survey that people does not respond to lousy noise as effective as their respond to light. So, we decided to make more research on that concern. With all the information that we collected from the survey and our research and knowledge about human factors we were able to write a proposal for our project. Before we got our last design, we studied carefully the feedback that we received for our proposal from both the teacher assistants and our mentor group. Evaluations Our first evaluation method was a matrix study for the alternative solutions that the group came up with. As you can notice from table (1) (see appendix D) the best choice our group was able to come up was the third choice, which was an alarm clock with an integrated radio and CD player which both work as a back up system, and two outlets for light sources as lamps that can be used as light induced alarm. Our second method of evaluation was through our survey, we were able to know what users where expecting in an alarm clock. 4

5 Recommended design Our recommended design is called the JINK alarm clock. It is a rectangle box of dimensions 8 x 11 x 1.5 for the CD model and 5 ¼ x 8 x 1.5 for the regular model. It has a big display screen in the front with a black background and green letters due to night visual issues. In the display screen the time will appear as the alarm option that you have chosen. On the top, there is the snooze button which will stop the CD player or the radio from playing for ten minutes. The CD player is located on the top too with its control buttons and the alarm buttons. On each side there is an infrared emitter, these infrared emitters will send a signal to the infrared receivers in the light switch which will cause the lights in the room to gradually fade in. The JINK clock will have an integrated and continuously recharging battery. This redundant system will allow the back up battery to constantly stay at its peak power all the time. It will have a power output designed in such a way that all operations of the JINK clock will remain functional for 2 days or 48 hours on the back up battery. References [1] Carter, Norman L. Transportation Noise, Sleep, and Possible After-Effects, Environment International, vol. 22, no. 1, pp [2] EPA Victoria, Environment Noise, [Online document], [2001 Sept 4], Available at: [3] Li D, Zheug S, He Y, Gao H.. What s Your Biological Time?, Space Med Eng, vol. 11, no. 2, April 1998, pp [4] MSN Encarta Online Reference, Biological Clocks, [Online document], [2001 Sept 3], Available at: [5] Boyce, Peter.(1998). Light, Sight, and Photobiology. Lighting Futures. [Online] 2(3). Avaliable: ( [6] Outside In, Dawn Simulation, [Online document], [2001 Sept 4], Available at : [7] The Healthy Living Catalog, Rise & Shine Natural Alarm Clock, [Online document], [2001 Sept 4], Available at: [8] Soleil Sun Alarm, Shine & Rise, [Online document], [2001 Sept 4], Available at: 5

6 [9] Truong, Kim Cang, Development Documents For Lay Person, [Online document], [2001 Sept 4], Available at: 6

7 Figure (1): Hierarchical decomposition to set up the alarm clock to 8:00 am 7

8 Figure (2): A front-left view of the JINK clock 8

9 Figure (3): A back-right view of the JINK clock 9

10 Appendix D Total cost effectiveness functionality simplicity Alarm clock with an integrated lamp only weighted factors Alarm clock with smell system and outlets for lamps weighted factors Alarm clock with outlets for lamps, a cd player and a radio weighted factors