I have seen a lot of clock projects using arduino I've seen a talking clock with alarm, I am thinking of making a clock where in I can set up multiple times when the alarm will go off..
The Idea is for Thesis and Prototyping project..
The Clock will serve as a mini-alarm clock per room with different class schedules in it to be used in our university. Any Idea and help would be very much appreciated and welcomed. I was also thinking maybe it could be an alarm clock connected to the faculty office where there is a database of schedule per room and when lets say Math class is over in Room 1 the alarm will go off, kinda like a synced clock connected to the office.
You may have to think about how the different Arduinos get connected (Network, WiFi, ZigBee, etc.), what an alarm should trigger (playing some audio, blinking a light, etc.) and where you wanna hold the database (Arduino is probably not the right platform to hold a database).
Can it be something that is not reliant on a database but instead a stand alone Alarm, but multiple alarms are set up? I know this can be done easily via code but can it be done using something like a GUI or excel like program?
Sure it can, it depends where you're skills are. It's probably not directly related to the Arduino world so for the GUI components you might have to ask in another forum.
You say you prefer a standalone solution, but it seems to me that the only sensible solution is one that is configured from the existing database. If your solution requires someone to manually replicate an existing calendar and keep it up to date, that's destined for the trash heap.
In my view the most sensible solution would be to have a PC application which schedules the alarm notifications based on the calendar. Access the calendar however you prefer - this sort of thing is very common and relatively simple to do on a PC (and much, much harder for an Arduino to do). It also gives you an accurate time source, and automatic timezone and DST management, which would be much harder to do on the Arduino. I'd suggest implementing the PC application as a web app, although you could write it as a fat client if you want. I suspect you'll find the web UI easier to develop and easier to use.
The only involvement for the Arduino would be outputting an alarm on command from the central server, and returning whatever form of acknowledgment or feedback that you decided to support.
