Team 27 - Rave Pillow

Inspiration

The idea for this project came from one of our teammates, who unfortunately slept through a midterm exam due to not getting enough sleep the night before. Although getting enough sleep is often the priority, needing to wake up bit subconsciously rejecting waking up can be a clear challenge to some (as it was to our teammate). This is why we came up with the idea of the Rave Pillow, which employs multiple methods to wake the user by physical disruption of sleep and sensory triggers.

What it does

Our product's objective is to wake a user. We though that the best way to do so would be to employ some type of mechanical stimulation, in addition to the usual sound stimulation. Additionally, we decided to incorporate blue and white lights to further encourage sensory stimulation.

How we built it

Firstly, we made high-level diagrams of the main mechanism that would lift the sides of the pillow. We then determined how we would trigger the different aspects of our product, and concluded that a pressure sensor or switch would suffice to indicate a user lying their head on a pillow. We then programmed an Arduino to turn a motor, and program/time the LEDs and buzzer. Meanwhile, we also assembled parts of our projects (components not requiring circuits).

Challenges we ran into

Towards the end, seemingly harmless issues such as tying and securing the string and motor in a way that allowed for the mechanism to overcome the large moment of the edges became a challenge. To overcome this, we conducted testing for varying heights and varied methods of tying the wheel and securing the mechanism. Furthermore, timing the circuit became a challenge when confirming the functionality of our project--we had to make sure that the mechanism that pulled the edges of the pillow upwards and around the user's head would return to its original position after a reasonable/appropriate amount of time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Completing a functioning prototype that complete the core objective of our project to prompt a user to wake up.

What we learned

We learned a lot about teamwork and the need to split tasks among teammates to make effective use of our time. On that note, we also learned about time management as well as how to manage expectations and goals within given time limits.

What's next for Rave Pillow

In terms of practical features, we want to link the Rave Pillow to our phones so that it can both track the length/time of sleep so that it could suggest wake-up calls based on optimal personalized sleep cycle times. To contribute additionally to the "rave" aspect of our project, we want to implement the feature of playing music through speakers embedded in the pillow, so that users could experience a better and more relaxing sleep.

Built With

• arduino