Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Robot alarm clock lets time really fly

Oversleepers are forced to hunt the rolling timepiece down to shut it up.

By Michael Kunzelman / Associated Press

Webb Chappell / Associated Press The shag carpet-covered robotic alarm clock on wheels, called Clocky, rolls away and hides in random directions and at various speeds. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Before you hit the snooze button a second time on this alarm clock, you'll have to hunt it down.

The shag carpet-covered robotic alarm clock on wheels, called Clocky, rolls away and hides.

The clock is the invention of Gauri Nanda, a graduate student -- and a person who occasionally oversleeps -- who works in the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"I've been known to hit the snooze bar for a couple hours, wake up two hours later and be completely shocked," said Nanda, 25, who created Clocky for an industrial design course last year.

She made a prototype for Clocky from foam, a pair of wheels and a circuit board connected to small motors.

"It is programmed to tell the motors to move randomly, to generate random speeds and directions so that the clock ends up in a new place every day," she said.

Nanda wanted Clocky to remind its owners of a troublesome pet.

"The idea really was to use technology in a more playful way," she added. "It's sort of like a hide-and-seek game."

Clocky gained attention after it was noticed by bloggers. Nanda's adviser, V. Michael Bove Jr., said hundreds of people interested in buying or selling the clocks have called and e-mailed.

"Everyone knows what an alarm clock is. What she has done is added technology to it in a very unobtrusive but creative way," said Bove, the MIT Lab's director of consumer electronics research.

Many of those who contacted Nanda said they have tried everything to drag themselves out of bed. Some said they moved their alarm clock to the far side of their bedroom but kept forgetting to set it before they fell asleep.

"Somebody told me they're trying to wean themselves off snoozing as if it was a bad habit, like smoking or drinking," she added.

MIT owns the intellectual property rights to Clocky and other student inventions, but Bove said Nanda would receive a "significant share" of any revenue generated by its sale.