I’ve fixed the biggest bug from the previous version of Wake Me Up Spotify; it is now possible to use a playlist to wake you up! The fix was simple, and like the rest of the app, a hack. It just closes spotify 2 minutes before you want to wake up. Then it reopens it again (T minus 1 minute), and starts playing at the specified wake up time.
The latest version can be downloaded here: WakeMeUpSpotify (0.2)
Using Wake Me Up Spotify
When you start Wake Me Up Spotify for the first time, a yellow banner (1) at the top of the app will indicate that you need to locate Spotify on your computer. Click on the banner, and find the folder where Spotify is installed (usually C:\Program Files\Spotify). You only have to do this once.
Now you need to specify the time you want to wake up at. Enter the time (in hours:minutes) in the small text box (2). Next you need to find a song or playlist that you want to wake up to. Open Spotify and find a song or playlist, right click it, and click “Copy Spotify URI”. Then paste it in the large textbox in Wake Me Up Spotify (3). Now you are ready to go to sleep!
You can hide Wake Me Up Spotify by clicking the minimize arrow on the toolbar. This will minimize the app to the taskbar (the bottom right corner of Windows). The app will still run from here. If you close it, it will not wake you up.
I just received my first ever 3D printed object from Shapeways, a CentripetalBox. Shapeways provide a cheap and simple way to 3D print anything you can imagine in a variety of materials, including ABS (like Lego), stainless steel and even color printed 3D objects. This is the first time I have 3D printed anything, so I was quite excited, but at the same time expecting a designflaw showing up in the finished product.
The design I got printed was a CentripetalBox, a cube which needs to be spun around quickly to be opened. You can see a video of how it works below. The original design had 4 plugs which would fit inside the 4 slots in the box and lid, but due to the inaccuracy of the printing process, the plugs where slightly too big. The lid was also a bit too big, and needed to be sanded down slightly to fit inside the box. This was expected, but what was not expected was how tough the material was. I printed in White, Strong and Flexible, and while the surface is quite rough and seems fragile (small particles of the raw material powder will come loose if you scratch it), the actual box is pretty solid. I tried sanding down the plugs so they would fit inside the slots, but quickly moved to a file instead. A Dremel might have been a good tool to have handy. Instead of using the printed plastic plugs I used a thin steel rod cut into plugs. It might even be that the plastic plugs are too light to work. A few more days of sanding/filing, and I’ll know.
Having discussed the end result and design with my dad, we came up with some improvements. I’ll make a new version for the Shapeways shop with those improvements (and bug fixes, like smaller plugs, and a tiny gap between the lid and the box). This is the first thing I have ever made in Blender and then 3D printed, and the fact that it works (with a bit of post-production work) is more than I expected. I have a few other ideas for 3D printing, and I’ll work on them this spring (or autumn, if you are in Australia).
