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authorThomas White <taw@physics.org>2023-02-18 22:52:35 +0100
committerThomas White <taw@physics.org>2023-02-19 22:26:53 +0100
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+MorningTown: A silent alarm clock
+=================================
+
+Description
+-----------
+
+MorningTown is a silent alarm clock system for a Raspberry Pi Pico W.
+
+At 7:15am, it lights a single green LED. At 8am, it additionally lights a red
+LED. Around midday, it turns them both off. It does literally nothing else.
+Oh, apart from synchronising the Pico's real-time clock using NTP.
+
+
+Why???
+------
+
+Awareness of the exact time is bad for your sleep. If you're having trouble
+getting to sleep, knowing how late it is only increases your stress level,
+making it even harder to sleep. Similarly, knowing that your alarm will go off
+shortly can prevent you from relaxing in the morning, and grabbing a valuable
+few minutes' extra sleep.
+
+All that you really need is an indicator of whether or not it's a sensible time
+to get up, or whether you should go back to sleep. That's all that MorningTown
+will give you.
+
+Obviously, you should set an audible alarm clock for important wake-up calls.
+But, in combination with regular sleep hygiene, two LEDs might be all you need
+to synchronise your sleep pattern!
+
+
+Hardware
+--------
+
+You'll need a Raspberry Pi Pico W. Solder red and green LEDs to GPIOs 21 and
+22 respectively, each with a 1.5 kOhm series resistor (you won't need much
+brightness). There is a ground pad conveniently placed between the two pins.
+
+
+Software
+--------
+
+Edit `compile` to set the path to the Pico SDK, as well as your WLAN name and
+password. Run it, then copy `build/morningtown.uf2` to the Pico.
+
+
+Boot up sequence
+----------------
+
+1. All three LEDs (red, green and the one on Pi board itself) light for 2
+ seconds.
+2. Board LED lights to indicate WLAN connection
+3. Flashing red LED indicates a problem. It will try again shortly.
+4. Alternating red and green LEDs indicate successful NTP synchronisation.
+5. All LEDs turn off. Everything dark until morning.
+
+
+Licence
+-------
+
+MorningTown is based on a heavily modified version of one of the Pico SDK
+examples (picow-ntp-client), copyright (c) 2022 Raspberry Pi (Trading) Ltd.,
+under the BSD 3-clause licence.
+
+MorningTown is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
+terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
+Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later
+version.
+
+MorningTown is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
+WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
+MorningTown. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+
+About the name
+--------------
+
+> Somewhere there is sunshine
+> Somewhere there is day
+> Somewhere there is Morning town
+> Many miles away
+
+- [The Seekers, 1966](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsqNcZ1JqW8)