Dillon Shu and Jack Rooney

Short summary –

Our project idea revolves around the goal of being able to turn on the lights in your room without having to hit the switch. Our primary objective is to have a remote controlled method of turning on the lights in the room. We could also place a motion sensor at the entrance to the room. From there, if time permits we can add a few small extensions to the project to turn it into an entire system. For example, when the light switch is flipped for the first time in the day, a speaker can broadcast your schedule for the day. Our project will be focused on the flat light switches, not the lever ones. 

Preferred installation location- It would most likely be a wall mounted unit. 

A brief description of the typical experience – 

It’s 3 AM and I’m lying in bed and I want to turn off the lights but I don’t want to get out of bed. I reach for the remote on my nightstand and press a button, and the lights turn off. I proceed to have to get out of bed anyways because I need to go to the bathroom, but my life was made slightly easier for a brief moment. 

How might your audience respond? – This is meant to be a small quality of life improvement. It is not breaking new ground; ideally the audience would respond by finding a use for this in their own home. 

What would be a hallmark of success? – The hallmark for success would be to be able to remotely turn off the lights in a room; we do want to expand upon this if possible but at the most basic level that is the functionality we want to achieve. 

How does it work?- Using the motion of a remote controlled servo, a block will rotate to either press the top or bottom of the switch to turn it on or off. 

Materials? Structure? Mechanism?- Most of the pieces will be made out of laser cut wood parts and the block can be made of either wood or clay. We will have a wall mounted box that has the servo and arduino in it and the block will attach to the box to rotate. 

Sensors? Actuators? Algorithms?- There is a servo motor as the main source of motion. There will also be a remote control to tell our system which way to rotate the block, so we will be using the IR remote and reciever. We may add more sensors later on to expand the project if time permits. 

Key Technical Challenges?- We will have to figure out how to attach the servo to the block so that the main load is not on the servo. We will also have to make sure the servo is not continuing to press the block down after it is already in its position. 

Sketches –