Do you find yourself sitting on Facebook, procrastinating for hours when you should be doing something else? Do you spend ages chatting on forums, or spending too long on games? Maybe you spend hours on YouTube saying “just one more video”. Whatever the distraction, we’re all guilty of doing it; however, 2 PhD students from MIT have devised the solution – the Pavlov Poke.
The Pavlov Poke monitors your usage on the internet and games, and logs how long you have spent on them. Your computer is connected to a special wrist-rest that lets you know you’re wasting too much time by zapping you with an electric shock. It’s not dangerous, but it’s enough to stop you wasting time on Facebook.
The main brains of the project is an Arduino board, and a Processing script creates an on-screen alert. When it’s time to shock, the Arduino activates a relay to start the shock circuit. the guys also point you to a tutorial on how to make your own shock circuit.
Robert and Dan have aslo extended this to a prank call service, where a random person will call you up and give you grief for spending too much time on Facebook!
I am the the founder and editor of Codeduino. I'm a developer by trade, and a maker by night. I've been 'making' ever since being introduced to Arduino at university - my final year project was an Ableton Live controller based on Arduino.