BLARE

Hello there! Today I worked on the code for the alarm clock! First I mapped the board’s labels (D0-D10) and the actual GPIO numbers, which was a bit tricky. After that, I copied the initialization code from the guide and then moved on to coding the UI. To get a better idea of how it would look, I hopped into lopaka.app (an online graphic design tool for screens used with microcontrollers) and designed the Settings menu, laying out the Alarm Time, Alarm Sound, and Font Color options, which I then repurposed to create the other menus as well. From there I built out a proper screen state machine, so I could actually navigate between al those menus and screens using the four buttons. Then, I asked AI for help to include some public domain music (including Fur Elise, Mountain King and Reveille) and brainstormed some ideas on how to get the local time onto the screen. My initial idea was to use an RTC, but then I realized that I had already used up every single GPIO pin already, so I switched from that idea to just pulling the real time over wifi instead. Along the way I ran into some bugs, such as my alarm time kept getting overwritten by the real clock value every frame, syntax errors and non-matching names. After I fixed those, the code compiles just fine, though I still need to test it out with the real pcb, once it gets here. Next step: harware assembly and testing! That’s for now, see you on the next devlog!

Heyy there! Yesterday I designed the PCB for my alarm clock, and today I finished the enclosure. I struggled a bit because the guide used Onshape and I was using Fusion 360, so I had to improvise a little bit, but I think it turned out pretty nice. So, for starters, I added the pcb and the screen as .step files and then extruded a tough enclosure around them, making sure to leave enough clearances. Afterwards, I added a cutout which the screen could slide into and then added supports for the pcb with holes for the heatset inserts. Then I made the lid, where I also added holes in the edges, so I can screw it on the main body. Then I added cutouts for the keys, the buzzer and and two more so you could see the XIAO and the hackclub logo along with my initials. I’m feeling pretty good with how it turned out. Hope you like it too! Next up is gonna be writing the code, so follow along! See you on the next devlog!

Heyyyy! First devlog for this project! Oh how I love these hackclub missions. I’ve already done the hackpad (waiting for the kit to arrive) and really liked it, so the moment I saw this one I knew I had to try it out! What I focused on today, was designing the pcb in KiCad. I decided to make it so the user can navigate a menu where they can change the time the alarm rings, etc. For that I’ll be using 4 switches: up, down, enter and back, which would also work as the snooze button. I laid everything down arranged them neatly and traced the traces. After that, I thought that it’d be really cool if I could put the hackclub logo on there, along with my initials and a qr code to my github repo, so I did that using KiCad’s Image Converter tool. I also rounded the edges of the board to look nicer. I was also thinking to put some LEDs as well to make it more interesting; maybe I’ll do that next. That’s basically it for now, see you on the next devlog! ;)