There’s no way anyone is going to sleep through an alarm from a clock concocted by students in Vancouver Island University’s information technology and applied systems program.
Wake Wheel represents the combined effort of students Tye Fleming, Riye Parmar and Matthias De Gisi, who have worked on it since September.
Wake Wheel has a unique – some might say diabolical – design: it’s an alarm clock on wheels that runs away when its alarm sounds, forcing its user to catch it to turn it off.
The device has heavily treaded wheels, so it can flee over multiple types of floor surfaces, and sensors to help it avoid obstacles around the house to really give its owner a bit of a challenge catching it.
“It forces you to get up in the morning,” Fleming said. “We’ve given it a little bit of a head start, so the alarm starts ringing a little bit after it starts driving so it gives it a chance to get away at first.”
The device is just one of 22 projects exhibited by first- and second-year IT students Monday, April 15, at a project fair at the Nanaimo campus. Other projects included a talking mannequin, a car that autonomously navigates mazes, and a portable motion-detecting security system that can be set up at a campsite or just about anywhere that doesn’t have electricity or wi-fi.
Some projects built on existing technology and applications, such as Anchor Alarm Me, a smartphone app designed by second-year student Diana Ied that warns boat owners if their craft’s anchors are dragging.
Ied’s app, like others of its type, uses GPS to track movement, but also incorporates other features, including the ability to memorize details about areas a boat owner has anchored previously to build a database of good and not-so-good anchoring spots. The app only turns on when it detects movement and then sounds an alarm, a feature she said allows the user to sleep through the night without worrying about dragging anchor, and saves battery power.
Trail Maids, a mobile app by second-year student Silas Boon, allows the user to mark where trash has been dumped on wilderness trails and record information and photos. The information and co-ordinates are pinpointed on a trail map or satellite view of the terrain and posted online for municipalities or volunteer organizations to find and conduct cleanups.
“You can also gamify it a little bit … You can track your contributions, so you can see what you’ve recorded as well as what you’ve cleaned up,” Boon said. “So you can have a community leader board to show [who] cleaned up the most … If we can incentivize it like that, then people can be competitive about cleaning, which is awesome.”
Allan McDonald, instructor and program chairperson of VIU’s web and mobile development program, said he was “blown away” by his students’ ingenuity and ability to come up with new ideas each year.
He said the students come up with project suggestions at the beginning of the school year and vote to select the projects they like most.
“Once the projects are chosen they get to pick their favourites … Because they decide, they buy in, they want to do it. It becomes a passion project,” McDonald said. “What they’re actually learning is not how to create a project. What the course is on is project management.”
The process teaches the students how to co-ordinate, communicate and work through disagreements.
“The learning is how to manage a project, how to manage your time with other people,” he said.
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