isnOre from Amy Friedman on Vimeo.

Concept:

I hate when someone is sleeping in the same room as me and snores. It gives me a headache, I cant sleep at all and I am always cranky the next day no matter what. isnOre is a device to detect snoring and inflicts disturbance to those who snore so they understand the impact it has upon others. Once isnOre detects snoring an alarm is set off and based on the origin of the noise, isnOre spins to face the device and sets off a water gun to spray the snorer and annoy them.

Process:

I began with figuring out my initial concept by looking at precedence and creating a blog of  “Precedent Analysis” of what the capabilities of a microphone input can be.  Then I chose to focus on snoring as it has always been an issue I have had when trying to sleep. From that point I began to look for what elements I needed to create the product and what the outputs should be to inflict pain/annoy snorers. I looked at dart guns, stun guns, shocks, water guns, and they came down to an alarm system that outputs a buzz. I then figured out the sequence of events and began to sketch out forms to maximize the effect and input of each sensor based on placement.

I created a cardboard prototype to understand the design better and used plans and sections to determine the dimensions of each element in the space. Next I created a 3D model of the design and used it to make a laser cutter file so I could utilize the laser cutter to cut acrylic.

Lessons learned:

I learned that a one week turn around time is hard to accomplish, but manageable as long as you dont attempt something that is too far out of reach to achieve. I learned that no matter how well designed the 3D model, and laser cutter file there will always need to be adjustments. I need to make sure to understand the cut of the laser better when putting pieces together. Using a microphone was a new experience for me and there are lots of manipulations that can be done using arduino and other programs that I want to explore and find out.