Posted on 03/26/2005 9:45:06 AM PST by srm913
Can't get up? Wake up and find the Clocky Ian Sample, science correspondent It looks annoying, like a furry swiss roll on wheels. Even its name is irritating: Clocky. But that's nothing compared with what it does. Clocky is surely the most infuriating wake-up call ever devised.
Dreamt up by a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it works like this: You hit the snooze button because you are desperate for a few more minutes' sleep. Clocky then rolls off the bedside table and wheels around the bedroom floor bumping into things, before settling on a place to hide.
"When the alarm clock sounds again, the sleeper must get out of bed and search for it," said Gauri Nanda, a research associate at MIT.
"This ensures that the person is fully awake before turning it off."
Ms Nanda hit upon the idea after struggling to rise in the mornings. "I've been known to hit the snooze bar for up to two hours or even accidentally turn it off. I've known people who put the alarm clock in the living room, but then forget to set it before going to sleep.
"Having the alarm clock hide from me was just the most obvious way I could think of to get out of bed."
Ms Nanda gave her clock a furry covering in the hope it would look endearing and stop people throwing it out of the window in anger.
A built-in microprocessor ensures that Clocky rolls off in a new direction and makes a series of different turns, so that its hiding place changes each morning. Because it uses simple technology, MIT says the clock, which has yet to go into production, would cost less than £15.
Ms Nanda has plans to make a second generation of more intelligent Clockies. If two people sharing a room needed to get up at different times, two Clockies could sound different alarms and even gang up on a serial oversleeper by sounding their alarms simultaneously.
I'd be the first one up on charges for "Clocky abuse".
Oooh, they've got to get this thing on the market ASAP...I know 3 people who would LOVE this for Christmas. :-)

Looks like something I made this morning.
I do need one though...
Here's a more effective method. Feed your dogs first thing in the morning when you wake up. After a couple weeks of this you'll never oversleep again. Whether you like it or not you'll be awakened by whining dogs hungry for their breakfast.
Now who couldn't use one of these?
:-)
When I have to get up at two to be to work by four this thing could come in very handy.
(Undead Smiley.)
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
Good tag-line!
:-)
Oh man! I need that! When's it going to production??
I'll chew on it.
:0)
-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)
I use that dog method--works fine except on the weekend.
As well, the springer has learned to get me up to feed him, then if I go back to sleep or out, he swears to my wife that he has not been fed until she gives him second breakfasts.

You're right!
LOL!
Mr. Clocky, meet Mr. Glocky...
I've got three dogs, one cat, one wife and two teenage daughters.
I need one of these like I need one less bathroom.
LOL!
Hard on the dry-wall, though!
LOL!
It's a wonder you get any sleep at all, NnBob!
I don't even want to think about what cats would do with it, but it can't be good.
Not me. I would end up stumbling around half asleep, clock hunting with a loaded shotgun.
It always works for me. A-huh!
(Attempts to shoot "Clocky" with silver pistol. Misses, and winds up shooting a hole through TiVo.)
Some days I don't get much. Last night I went to bed at two, and got up at six. I think I could use a nap.
But I don't worry about it. -- No sense losing sleep over insomnia.
Again, hard on the dry-wall! LOL!
Tend to have problems that way myself.
No fun!
LOL!
ROFLMAO!
That's good!
:-)
From the article:
Can't get up? Wake up and find the Clocky Ian Sample, science correspondent It looks annoying, like a furry swiss roll on wheels. Even its name is irritating: Clocky. But that's nothing compared with what it does. Clocky is surely the most infuriating wake-up call ever devised.
Dreamt up by a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it works like this: You hit the snooze button because you are desperate for a few more minutes' sleep. Clocky then rolls off the bedside table and wheels around the bedroom floor bumping into things, before settling on a place to hide.
"When the alarm clock sounds again, the sleeper must get out of bed and search for it," said Gauri Nanda, a research associate at MIT.
"This ensures that the person is fully awake before turning it off."
haha! I wonder how many of these DON'T survive after the FIRST time it goes off?
I can imagine folks flinging this into the wall the first morning. haha!
Until it's Smith & Wesson proof, it won't be at the Slim house.
hahaaaaa! :^D
...beepbeepbeepWHACK!
...thud!thunk!thunk!thunk!thunk!...
BANG!
"It" meaning "a gun". ;)
Ms Nanda gave her clock a furry covering in the hope it would look endearing and stop people throwing it out of the window in anger.
LOL. Yeah, that'll stop 'em.
Clockies could ... even gang up on a serial oversleeper by sounding their alarms simultaneously.
I just have to laugh at this.
Clocky #1: That's the fifth time this week he's overslept.
Clocky #2: I know... let's teach him a lesson.
Clocky #3: You mean... gang up on him?
Clocky #2. Yeah.
Clocky #1: Normally I don't approve of this sort of thing, but I suppose we have no choice. All right, everyone, get into formation! Be ready to use evasive maneuvers! He's not gonna like this.
Clockies 1,2,3: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!
Clocky #3: Run for your lives! He's coming after us!
Clocky #1: Oh no!! He got 2! Not the baseball bat! NO!!
Clocky #3: Oh, the inhumanity of it all!!!
No, I don't have anything better to do than write Clocky script scenarios. ;)
You should draw a cartoon for this.
Hmmm... I actually do draw comics. Maybe I will. ^_^
Good!
Be sure to scan it and post it on this thread later! ;^)
Pretty cute idea isn't it Meek? I'd buy one just to see it work!!
LOL, good post!
hehe! Yeah, pretty cute. I don't use an alarm. I just get up early.I really got a kick outta this thing. People kickin' it around and
such, lol!:^)
LOL, that's an understatement if I ever heard one!!
LOL!That's funny. We are in shift change mode now, PL.
As usual, I'm loggin' out as you're loggin' in.
A ten HUT!!! :^D
:-)

I can just imagine what my nutty Chocolate Lab would do with Clocky.
Is it yours?
I almost got a little 12 week old Yellow pup last weekend - a lady in our Hunt Club brought the last two pups in her HRCh bitch's litter to the training session. My little Choc 4 yr old spay played with them very nicely -- they swarmed all over her, and she crouched down so that they could wrestle over her back, then rolled over and grinned all over her honest Lab face. She didn't even care when they tried to nurse!
I liked the smaller one - very sweet little boy with a very fine-boned face. I don't like great big Labs.
That's a beautiful dog!
She's a great little girl -- she is my first dog, and now I wouldn't have anything but a Lab. So friendly, so intelligent, so eager to please -- and so full of boundless energy. They can be a little overwhelming if you don't give them a job to do . . . but fortunately there are plenty of opportunities locally for Labs to do agility, flyball, hunting retriever, etc.
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