2FAC – Two Factor Alarm Clock

98-final-project-f2fac-first-sketch.jpg

Description

A wireless and sturdy alarm clock that can be snoozed by hitting (or throwing?) it but not turned off unless it is placed on its (bolted down?) docking station elsewhere in the house. The docking station also allows setting the clock and alarm time using a selector button/slide for the clock or alarm, and two rotating knobs to set the hours and minutes. The alarm clock itself only shows the current time (and the alarm time when shaken?).

Origin

A normal alarm clock doesn't work for all teenagers who need to get up early, and dads (like me) who want to be able to sleep in late.

Progress

Week 2 — CAD

In the week I played with 7-segment displays and a shape for the clock and base station. I did not deviate much from my initial sketch because pressure to learn FreeCAD and Blender to not leave any room for creativity.

Week 4 — Embedded Programming

In this week we played with Micro Controllers and I developed strong feedings for the RP2040. My final project will have a base station and the clock itself. One of them will probably run a RP2040 with Internet access to keep time using NTP.

Week 6 — Electronics Design

In this week I learned about Charlieplexing. If I go for 7-segment digits on the clock, I'll need it to drive so many LEDs. I still do not know if I want to go for OLED or super fancy e-ink instead.

Week 7 — Computer Controller Machining

Wood is very pretty and a good candidate for the base station or clock, or both.

Inspiration

Copyright © 2026 Remco van 't Veer

Licensed under a
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Build using
GNU Emacs, Org Mode and GNU Guix

Source code hosted at
gitlab.fabcloud.org