DR JOHN MORGAN
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People<br />
“I wanted to show people how they could not<br />
only reduce pollution, but also improve their<br />
own quality of life through active travelling”<br />
Sam Young, inventor, Act Alarm Clock<br />
How did you come up with the<br />
idea of the Act Alarm Clock<br />
I studied sustainable product design at<br />
university, and the final year brief was<br />
to design a product for societal change.<br />
I decided to focus on air pollution and<br />
physical inactivity – both recurring<br />
themes in the media – and specifically<br />
on designing a product to reduce<br />
personal CO2 emissions through<br />
active commuter travel.<br />
I’m a keen cyclist myself and I<br />
appreciate the benefi ts of active travel:<br />
I enjoy it, it wakes me up in the morning,<br />
I feel energised when I get to work, it<br />
improves my sleep pattern, it helps me<br />
to keep fi t, I save money and overall<br />
I feel it improves my quality of life. I<br />
wanted to design something that made it<br />
easier for a wider audience to undertake<br />
active travel, and in doing this lower<br />
their personal CO2 emissions and<br />
improve their levels of physical activity.<br />
What’s the concept<br />
Act Alarm Clock is based around one<br />
word: routine. The clock varies the<br />
time your alarm goes off according to<br />
the local weather and travel reports,<br />
waking you at an appropriate time to<br />
incorporate low carbon active travel<br />
if the conditions are correct. It also<br />
records weekly travel behaviour<br />
and uses this data to stimulate<br />
further change in the user.<br />
The alarm clearly displays the benefits of active travel to the user<br />
8<br />
Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital<br />
November/December 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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