Gauri Nanda, an MIT graduate student, has invented an alarm clock that requires getting out of bed to find it. After one push — or in my case it would be slap — of the snooze alarm, Clocky falls to the floor and rolls away. To turn the thing off, one must get up and find it.

Nanda is currently developing a prototype and hopes to begin testing it soon with future world marketing in mind. Judging from the amount of interest Clocky has generated, it will probably be a hit.

Clocky features a built-in computer chip that causes it to roll a random distance, guaranteeing that it will end up in a different place each time. It has rubber wheels and is covered in carpet to help cushion its fall to the floor.

“My parents had amplifiers that looked like they were covered in carpet,” she [Nanda] said. “I went with it because it’s unconventional looking and gives the clock a playful personality. Maybe it’ll even make the user laugh.”

In my checkered youth, I possessed stereo speakers covered with shag, so I would feel right at home with Clocky.

But the real question, of course, is…

Would it get #1 Son out of bed?