Don't have time to make bacon cereal for breakfast? Maybe you've slept in and need a little head start with your ultimate bacon sandwich? Fret no more, we have the answer. It's the "Wake 'n' Bacon"!

From: http://www.mathlete.com/portfolio/wakeNbacon.php

WHAT: An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell and sizzle of cooking bacon.

WHY: No one likes to wake up, especially by an alarm. This clock gently wakes you up with the mouthwatering aroma of bacon, just like waking up on a Sunday morning to the smell of Mom cooking breakfast. Unless you're Jewish.

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HOW: A frozen strip of bacon is placed in Wake n' Bacon the night before. Because there is a 10 minute cooking time, the clock is set to go off 10 minutes before the desired waking time. Once the alarm goes off, the clock it sends a signal to a small speaker to generate the alarm sound. We hacked the clock so that the signal is re-routed by a microchip that in responds by sending a signal to a relay that throws the switch to power two halogen lamps that slow-cook the bacon in about 10 minutes.

BACKGROUND: Waking up by force is physically and spiritually jarring, but we must do it nearly all the time. By interview and direct observation, we found a number of ways in which common alarm clocks could be improved. Many are simple conveniences, but the most essential finding was that most people eventually become "immune" to their alarms. To that end, we proposed a plugin architecture where the alarm triggers any number of seperate modules, similar to that of an electric timer with a snooze button.

Proposed add-on modules:

• Heat/Cooling unit
  
• Bed Vibrator
  
• Bright Lamp
  
• Baking unit
  
• Bass Generator
  
• Air Cannon

In addition, we propose several improvements to the clock unit itself:

• Calendar Aware: knows not to go off on weekends, holidays
  
• Presence Aware: only active when there is enough pressure on the bed to indicate presence of a person
  
• Option to have waking module "dimmed up": whether a lamp or sound or vibration is used as a waking agent, the option to have this sensation dimmed up from zero so user is eased into waking

In the end, we just built the bacon-cooking part because we received such a strong response from people.