Alan from Japan had too much spare time, spare parts and the need for a new kitchen timer - so he created a large unit with a graphic LCD module that is easy to use, unique and memorable. His design brief was to have the timer play music, and be turned on and off without a physical button, so he used a tilt-switch instead - however the time durations are set with buttons on the top:
For the sound effects, Alan hacked a simple keyring that plays a tune at the press of a button - perfect for hacking into an Arduino-based system. Although he has uploaded the code to a raw ATmega328, the code is first compiled in the Arduino IDE and works for out platform. Thankfully Alan has released the Arduino code for everyone's use, and is available for download here.
Once again examples such as Alan's clock show how you can create professional and interesting devices with Arduino-based boards and some basic electronics knowledge. To build such a device, you could use our Freetronics LeoStick which lends itself to embedding into almost any device. To find out more, visit Alan's website here.
