This project is about the journey, and not the end product. With that out of the way, this project is an alarm clock built around a microcontroller, real time clock (RTC) module, Adafruit soundboard, and 4 7-segment shift registers. This is my first time designing something in the field of electronics, and I figured that this would be a manageable challenge. This involved figuring out how to pick components, design circuits, assemble schematics, build my own PCB, learn SMD and through-hole soldering, and massive amounts of coding/debugging. 

From the popular game 'Portal' the "Portal Radio" is a classic in the community, and the associated musical theme that comes with it is instantly recognizable. This being said, I wanted to make my recreation of it as an alarm clock. The functionalities I wanted to include are listed below, and I want to make it look like the game prop. 

As of 3/10/2024 - I may end up dropping the original theming as that is a very low priority compared to getting it working. As a lower priority item, I may go back and design a portal radio shell that this can fit in, but for now I am not concerned with that until I get the electronics working. 

Clock logic features:

The picture on the right contains all the logic electronics on the left part of the top breadboard. The right part of the top breadboard has 2 74HC595 8-bit shift registers to control the music board (Adafruit Audio FX Board). 

• A way to adjust the time and the alarm time

• A way to turn the alarm on and off with an indicating LED

• A snooze button that would reactivate the alarm after a set amount of time unless the alarm switch was off

• A way to switch between 24 hr (military) time and 12 hour (conventional) time

• If the alarm clock is in 12 hour mode, I want an LED to indicate whether "1:00" means 1 am or 1 pm

• A dial of some kind that can adjust the brightness of all of the clock displays

• UPDATE 6/3/23: Instead of having 7 switches to control settings, I made a navigable menu with a rotary encoder and an LCD display

Display features:

• 4 74HC595 8-bit shift registers control the segments (top left image), giving me more control over the exact combinations of segments turned on with possible room for an idle "animation"

Sound System:

• I originally had plans on researching and designing my own speaker amp as well as IC that can somehow take an audio file and play it, but I did some research and that ended up being difficult for my current skill level, so for now I'm using an adafruit audio board, which can store up to 16 MB of audio files, and be triggered using Software Serial from the microcontroller, and a stereo speaker set I got from 5 Below. The board and speakers will share an AUX cable, and I think that unless I want to start embarking on learning SMD electronics, this is the way to go. 

Picking back up around June, I made the decision to switch the main micro-controller from the Arduino Mega 2560 to the ESP32. The ESP32 is a very overpowered microcontroller for the purposes of this project, but I wanted to gain the experience of using it. Especially in my first tests I ran into a lot of issues compared to Arduino (probably because I cheaped out on chinese knock-offs). The biggest problem is that I needed to rewrite most of my code, redesign the schematic, and redesign the PCB. Additionally, the ESP32 runs on 3.3V, whereas the parts I had picked out (and already bought) run on 5V, so I found a design from Adafruit's BSS138 based logic level converter, and put it onto my schematic/pcb. 

With my projects I aim to go through growing pains so that I may be more efficient in future projects. At this point in time (6/3/23), I have a fully functional circuit on breadboards, as well as having the needed schematic and footprints. From here, I just need to make all of the connections between components, before going to a PCB manufacturer to get a V1 prototyped.