Easy Water Gun Alarm Clock

So you want to make a water gun alarm clock? Are you unsatisfied with your traditional alarm clock? Would you like something to make you spring out of bed, ready to take on the day? Well, this simple innovation is perfect. This water gun alarm clock is a fun and exciting way to wake up in the morning. Instead of that irritating beeping sound forcing you out of your cozy bed, you can now be squirted in the face as a refreshing alternative.

Parts:

1 Electrical Water Gun

1 Bread Circuit Board

1 Digital Alarm Clock

Roll of Electrical Tape

16 Gauge Wire

Wire Cutters

Relay Switch

Step 1: Cut the Wire

In this step, open the alarm clock. Snip the wires that go from the circuit board to the speaker. These wires trigger the speaker and cause it to make sound to wake you up. These will be soon connected to the water gun to cause it to shoot.

Step 2: Longer Wires

In this step, you will snip the rubber ends off of the wires you just cut. Then, you will attach more wire to these ends. Use electrical tape to secure the connection, and for a more permanent connection, solder the wires. These longer wires will give you more wire to connect to the breadboard without it being too short.

Step 3: Water Gun Wires

Cut the wire that leads from the water gun to the trigger and the ground wire. In this case, there are four wires. Separate the wire that leads to the "FIRE" button (yellow) and the ground wire (red). These are the wires we will connect to the circuit.

Step 4: Connecting More Wires

Again, take the rubber off of the ends of the wires of the water gun (the two that connect to the "FIRE" button). Then, connect more longer wires to the ends just as you did on the alarm clock. this also allows for a longer wire to connect to the breadboard.

Step 5: Relay Switch

Place the relay switch in the middle of the bread circuit board. The purpose of the relay switch is very important to the circuit. In simple terms, the relay switch is used when you have a low voltage source and need a higher powered surge. The relay switch takes a low power voltage and makes it a higher powered voltage.

Step 6: Wire Attachment

Connect the two wires from the alarm clock to one side of the relay switch. Next, you will connect the wires from the water gun to the opposite side of the relay switch on the breadboard. This will connect the alarm clock to the water gun.

Step 7: Enjoy!

Finally, set your alarm for when you would like to wake up. When the alarm goes off, the water gun will squirt a refreshing splash right at your face to wake you up in the most exciting way possible!

Step 8: Conclusion

Time

Overall, it took us about two weeks to complete the project. Some parts took longer than others. Most of the difficulty came with finding an adequate motorized water gun. It took about a week to find one online and have it delivered. Getting the breadboard and relay switch just took a quick stop at RadioShack. When we were finally ready to wire the water gun and the alarm clock together, we had some problems. We weren't sure exactly how to wire it, but we didn't know what was going wrong. The wiring process took us about two days of class time. In the end, we couldn't get it to work properly, but we learned from the experience and we know what we could have improved.

Possible Improvements

In this project, there were a few things we could have improved if we were to start fresh. First off, we could have spent more time to find a better and simpler water gun for this project, but motorized water guns were very hard to find. Also, we could have had a better background with electrical concepts. We weren't very familiar with how electricity works, and that set us back. I think that if we were able to start over, we would be much more successful in making our Water Gun Alarm Clock work.