University of Michigan:
Winter 2008
Professor: Mark Brehob
Lab Instructor: Matt Smith
TA: Chris Boguslawski
Group Members:
Kyle Lee
Kevin Reilly
David Wingert
Objective:
For the final project of University of Michigan's Design of
Microprocessor-Based Systems course, we were to design and implement an application
involving interfacing hardware and software devices to a microprocessor. As
any EECS student can tell you, working all night and then waking up the next morning
to do it all again can be a tough task. A hard drive can be utilized to function
as an analog alarm clock to help these students. By cutting a slit in the
hard disk and flashing lights behind it at specifically timed intervals, the rapidly
flashing lights are perceived as solid analog clock hands. When the alarm
is triggered, a visually stimulating pattern of lights and colors take over the
face of the clock and an alarm noise is output from the actuator of the hard drive.
During the alarm sequence, a simple math problem is displayed on the LCD and
the alarm will not shut off until the correct answer is pressed on the keypad. This
ensures that students are fully awake and functioning when they need to get up.
Member Task Distribution:
Kyle Lee:
software guru, time/alarm/NES/keypad/LCD hardware, website
Kevin Reilly:
color PWM hardware, actuator hardware, laser/led circuits
David Wingert:
time/alarm/NES/keypad/LCD hardware, software, signal timer software, website
Special Thanks to:
Warren Eaton:
Drilled out the back of our hard drive to allow for the LEDs
to flash through.
Michael Wingert, Nichole Bolte and others at Seagate Technology:
Provided our group with the hard drives necessary to complete
this project.