Results of Design
For our rotating mirror assembly, it turns out that the top axle had to be lubricated well for best results, otherwise vibrations could interfere more intensely with the tracking laser and the phototransistor. If we had a more secure way to mount the tracking laser, that problem would be abated.
In the beginning, we tried to use software primarily to detect a correct Easter Egg sequence, but this method appeared to be slow and unreliable. Instead, we used hardware to create a state machine that would shift in the button responses. This gave us more promising results, but was still unperfected at the end of our demonstration, and needed some more tweaking.
Other than that, our alarm clock performed functionally exactly the way we wanted it to. The N64 controller was excellent for controlling the alarm clock menu and setting the time, alarm time, and difficulty.
Conclusion
We really didn’t need much processing power for the alarm so the board provided in lab worked very well. The work load was little much due to our 2 person group but we were able to essentially finish the project with the exception of the easter egg check sequence always saying that the easter egg combination had been entered. The setup however was a little temperamental which was probably partly due to our lack of precision tools to put it together. Otherwise, we really wouldn’t change anything in our project.
