Tinkering: Knocker-Upper

The Knocker-Upper was an Industrial Era profession that was phased out as alarm clocks became more commonplace in every household. Someone would go around working-class neighborhoods in the early morning hours with a mallet to wake the household’s workers so they could get up and go to the factories. Waking the entire household, however, was distruptive, so a long stick was introduced to tap on the windows of individual slumbering workers.

I reimagined the Knocker-Upper as an automated device that taps on your window once the sun rises to a certain point. A servo with a tapping-arm is held in place with a 3D Printed bracket and a suction cup. The servo is controlled by an Arduino collecting input from a small light sensor (one of my favorite little sensors). Once the outside light reaches a certain threshold the servo begins tapping at random intervals to simulate the ayrthmic tapping of a long, unwieldy stick. The tapping could be clearly heard across the room where my bed was, and had a certain amusing, almost pitiful sound.

Future iterations could include wireless power transmission through the glass, weatherproofing, and more easily controlled lighting threshold and tapping frequency/magnitude. While this setup certainly works, I would prefer to build a system that raises my blinds instead of tapping on my window, as I prefer to wake up with light rather than sound.