materials

Hardware

1) Arduino Diecimla I/O Board
The Arduino board is an 8-bit microcontroller based on the AVR enhanced RISC architecture. It can be programmed using the C programming language in the Arduino software environment (see Software section below).

2) Hitec HS-311 Servo Motor
The servo motor is a rotary electrical device that can be controlled by an electrical input. The angle at which the motor should turn is determined by the duration of the pulse applied to the control wire (this encoding is called Pulse Coded Modulation). The servo expects a pulse every 20 milliseconds.

3) Parallax Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Reader Module
This RFID reader reads passive RFID transponder tags up to 1~ 3 inches away. Each transponder tag has a 10-digit code that allows each individual tag to be identified. The Parallax RFID reader can communicate the tag number it reads through any RS232-compatible (i.e., serial binary data) interface.

4) Interlink Electronics Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) Sensors
FSR sensors are robust, polymer thick film devices that show a decrease in resistance with increased pressure. This allows them to be used to detect when human body weight is present.

5) Category 5 Cable and Keystone Jack
Category 5 cables are a type of twisted pair cables designed for high signal integrity. The jack consists of 8 pins at each end. The Cat-5 cables make the wiring schemes simpler in electronic circuits where lots of devices (and wiring) are involved.

Software

1) Apache Server and PHP
Apache is a web server, while PHP is a dynamic scripting language. Combining Apache and PHP allows us to create a web user interface for setting alarm times.

2) C program for serial port communication

3) Arduino Software Environment v.0009
The Arduino Software Environment provides a programmable environment for the Arduino I/O board.

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