At first, I was working on an alarm clock that wakes you up by shocking you. However, after exploring many ideas, I was reminded of the tipping bed that was made by Mr. Moody's former class, and began to work on that.

As it stands, the bed functions. However, it is an inefficient system that is breaking, and will probably collapse soon. So from there I had two options: to repair the current mechanism and make it stronger, or build a new one.

I found that I would need something that could slow the fall of the bed, and reduce the strain on the current mechanism. From there, I found that chairs do precisely that. Chairs use a gas spring, which uses pressurized nitrogen gas and lubricant to move up and down. The base is a sort of container containing those things, and then there is a metal rod, that acts as a piston to apply pressure to the nitrogen gas. Using that, I can slow the fall of the bed. I also thought that, since it is a chair, it can support a person, so it could potentially replace the mechanism altogether.

I took a chair and removed the back, the seat and the wheels, so that the only thing left is the base and the gas spring.

Currently I am raising the bed up so that the chair can actually fit underneath the bed at full extension. Then I have to build a base on the chair, and mount the chair to the bottom of the bed. Then I'll make a simple lever-based trigger mechanism to activate the bed.

From there, if time permits, I would hopefully be able set that up to an electronic mechanism to trigger it, and then set that up to a timer to wake you up in the morning.