CMU Professor puts the children to sleep

John Zimmerman’s Reverse Alarm Clock is not your mother’s wake up call.

In fact, it’s not… John Zimmerman’s Reverse Alarm Clock is not your mother’s wake up call.

In fact, it’s not designed to be your child’s either.

Instead, the Reverse Alarm Clock encourages children to stay in bed when it is too early – or too late – to be roaming the house and waking their parents.

Zimmerman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design and Human-Computer Interaction Institute, believes that by providing children with an easily identifiable picture of the sky to delineate the time outside, they will learn when it is OK to be up and when it is not.

“It’s not about getting kids to sleep or not sleep,” Zimmerman said of the clock. “It’s about giving them a sense of what time it is.”

Zimmerman believes children sleep for the duration of time their bodies need, but that they have little understanding of how this time translates temporally to the hours of the day and night.

The Reverse Alarm Clock seeks to teach children to determine the time by looking at the clock face’s display of the sky.

“The rules of the clock are when the moon is up, stay in bed, when the moon is gone, you can get out of bed if you want, and when the sun is up, you must get out of bed,” Zimmerman said.

By understanding what time of day or night it is and knowing what activity level is acceptable for that time, Zimmerman believes children can learn to better understand their sleep routine, as well as that of their parents.

“One of my research areas is about how products can help dual-income parents feel like better parents,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman says that a lack of sleep can cause parents to feel more stressed and irritable the next day, and this can take a toll on their interactions with their children.

While the Reverse Alarm Clock does not guarantee to keep kids in bed, Zimmerman hopes that by implementing the device into their child’s daily routine of sleep and waking, parents can teach children to understand and take responsibility for their own actions.

By this method, Zimmerman believes that the clock can foster a sense of independence that is beneficial to child and parent alike.

“The point is, you’re giving the child the information to make an informed decision,” Zimmerman said.

The clock’s design also stresses the importance of making the child an integral part of his or her daily routine and encourages responsible decision making.

“I think the biggest appeal is in the sense of agency the clock creates for the children,” Zimmerman said.

Geared toward children between the ages of 2 and 4, the clock gives them freedom to control a portion of their schedule with the “Treasure Chest” feature.

The Treasure Chest allows the child to choose his or her own music for nighttime and daytime alarms.

Zimmerman says the child’s involvement is an important aspect of the clock. According to him, children will understand and cooperate with the clock’s routine because they actively play a role in it rather than a rigid schedule that is imposed upon them.

At the same time, the music plays an important role for the parents as well.

Normally, the daytime music will automatically sound when the clock’s monitor displays a sun and signals the time to get up.

Since the clock also gives children the option of getting out of bed before the Sun is up, but after the Moon is gone, sensors attached to the bottom of the legs at either end of the bed will cause the music to play earlier if there is a shift in weight from the child getting out of bed.

Zimmerman says this feature is valuable because it notifies parents when their child is awake, so that they can make sure the child is not getting into trouble.

In a sense, the clock acts as the next step up from a baby monitor, allowing children who have matured beyond the need for constant walkie-talkie surveillance to be involved in their schedule, while still keeping their parents aware of their actions.

So far Zimmerman’s product is not available for purchase and is still in the initial prototype phase.

“We’re not going to make it into a product, but we’d be happy if a company came along that is interested in it,” Zimmerman said.

Before beginning the project, Zimmerman and his students presented their idea to parents from dual-income families to gage their interest and discovered the need for such a product.

The subjects responded with interest in the clock, but as of yet, the Reverse Alarm Clock has not been tested with an actual family in their own home.

Part of Zimmerman’s goal for any new research endeavor is to further understand material possession attachment.

“There are a lot of theories surrounding the idea why people love certain items. The products that people love the most are those that give them a sense of identity,” he said.

Zimmerman hopes that by shaping their own sleeping patterns, children will view their involvement with the Reverse Alarm Clock as a means by which they can shape their identities.