A common fault of alarm clocks is that it is too easy to turn them
off quickly and fall back to sleep. Seiichi Sato of the Japanese toy company
Tomy proposes a solution (British patent application 2 246 881).
The alarm clock is a cube, with a clock face on the front, and five
pop-up knobs or 鈥榤oles鈥� on the top. When the alarm goes off, an internal
microprocessor triggers cams that randomly pop the moles up and down. To
stop the alarm the sleeper must use a small hammer to hit at least three
of the moles before they pop down.
As this requires a certain amount of skill and concentration, the sleeper
will, to quote the inventor, 鈥榖e awakened with certainty . . . whether the
person likes it or not鈥�.
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