Wind Chime Alarm

Many of us work long hours, heads down, on a computer, and forget to take short breaks. We all hear suggestions to take breaks, but adding new habits is hard. The Habit Reminder Chime resulted from a design challenge to provide regular, non-annoying reminders.

This Instructable focuses on making a Habit Reminder Chime. The specific components are listed below, but you can be creative and adapt these with variations of your own choice. This list is divided into the supplies for the mechanical kinetic chime sculpture and the supplies for the electronic components that make the chime reactive to its environment.

Habit Reminder Chime Schulpture

1. Small Wind Chime (BUY)
2. Vibrator Motor (BUY)
3. Plywood Circle Bottom Plate, 5" diameter x 1/8" thick (MAKE by 3D Print or BUY)
4. Plexiglass Top Plate, 5" diameter x 3/16 thick (BUY)
5. Hex Standoff Spacers, 4.5" long
6. Brass Ball Threaded Lamp Fineal for Top Plate (BUY)
7. Round Brass Cabinet Knob for Bottom Plate Foot (BUY

Supporting Electronic Components

1. Arduino Nano {or equivalent processor board} (BUY)
2. Ultrasonic Distance Sensor {Arduino Compatible} (BUY)
3. Arduino Real Time Clock (BUY)

Many of us today work at the office or home, sitting for long hours in front of a computer. We have been told that being so sedentary can have many negative impacts, and we hear suggestions that we take short breaks every 30 to 60 minutes. One study says a 5-minute stroll each hour in the workday boosted mood, countered fatigue, and cut food cravings more than a 60-minute exercise session.

Despite these suggestions, they seldom lead to new habits, so too few take regular breaks. The challenge for this Instructable was to design a non-intrusive, supportive aid that can provide gentle reminders that "tickle" us into starting and sustaining a repetitive break routine. Ideally, over time, these reminders will become new habits.

Here are some articles supporting the benefits of establishing regular, short work breaks:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/152336802?ft=nprml&f=152333587

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/rx-prolonged-sitting-five-minute-stroll-every-half-hour

https://hbr.org/2023/05/how-to-take-better-breaks-at-work-according-to-research

The first challenge was to develop the design for a non-jarring alarm. That eliminated the use of typical buzzers or bells and bright lights that are not always attention-capturing. After much brainstorming, a possible alternative was to use a simple, small wind chime to provide gentle jingling reminders. But, since wind chimes are obviously driven into motion by the wind, a key problem is how to stimulate their motion when activated inside by a timer instead of randomly by the wind.

A second challenge was how to activate the chime at regular intervals. A simple solution is to activate it with one of the inexpensive and easy-to-implement Arduino computer boards. A real-time clock module can be added to determine both regular intervals and wake/sleep times.

The third challenge was a design that is non-obnoxious and compatible with the workplace or home environment. Using a wind chime definitely contributes to making it more pleasant and less "noisy." However, it could still be obnoxious to non-owners unless the system is aware of the user's presence and deactivated when away. This also has a relatively simple solution that takes advantage of the multiple Arduino sensors that can sense the presence of a person. The obvious choices are an ultrasonic distance sensor, PIR sensor, or radar sensor.

The fourth challenge was to come up with a design that would have an artistic, decorative appearance compatible with the work/home environment.

Based on the above research, the design has four essential requirements:

1. A wind chime coupled to an mechanical actuator to provide a gentile, non-startling tickler sound when triggered
2. An Arduino processor with a real-time clock to activate the wind chime at the appropriate "reminder" times
3. An ultrasonic sensor to determine a person is nearby to avoid annoying (and turned off!) by non-users
4. The final form should be a kinetic sculpture that has an artistic and decorative appearance that is compatible with the work/home environment

Based on the above design requirements, an initial prototype was constructed. This consisted of a low-cost, small wind chime mounted under a supporting brass rod and a small vibrator motor with a small clapper rod mounted on the shaft to bounce the wind chime. The brass rod was supported by a round plywood platform that had the Arduino, timer module, and ultrasonic sensor underneath.

While it seemed it would be easy to randomly bounce the chime when the motor was turned on, it turned out that it was not regular enough and didn't sound pleasant. Several alternatives were tried, including having the motor on top, using a small servo motor to wag it back/forth, a pulsed stepper motor, and a solenoid pinger.

The most successful was a Rube-Goldberg-like arrangement of a tiny vibrator motor hanging down between the chime bars. When activated the irregular motion caused by the vibrator's rotor "bonked" the chimes more randomly.

This will be used to satisfy Design Requirement 1.

In addition to the mechanics of the kinetic sculpture, the Habit Reminder Chime needs the capability to time actions and coordinate reactions with its environment. These can be summarized as follows:

1. An Arduino processor to provide timed triggers to the chime actuator motor based on programmed inputs from a real-time clock module
2. A motion and proximity sensor to sense when someone is to be alerted and if they have recently moved.

By basing these capabilities on an Arduino architecture, their implementation is widely understood and easily implemented. Therefore, the details will not be shown here and will be left to the reader to complete.

This will satisfy Design Requirements 2 and 3.

In the prototyping stages, plywood discs provided the mechanical base of the Habit Reminder Chime. To satisfy Design Requirement 4 for a more attractive appearance, a Base Plate was designed and 3D printed, and a plexiglass disc was added for a top plate to hold the wind chime strands and suspend the motor wiring. These are assembled with the Arduino NANO and associated electronic components mounted under the Base Plate.

The final version is shown in the cover image and here. The goal was to provide a more attractive final implementation to satisfy Design Requirement 4.

The Habit Reminder Chime was initially designed to support regular work-break reminders. But it can become the core of other tickler reminders. A more sophisticated version could use a calendar app and a TicTic-like reminder App to provide generalized reminders alerted by the Wind Chime. For example, BlueTooth could be added to extend the connection range. In addition to the basic proximity sensor, additional sensors could be added to extend the capabilities to sense temperature, humidity, and CO2 in the local room.

This shows that the concept of the Habit Reminder Chime kinetic sculpture could be significantly expanded.