Now you might be wondering why I'm kicking my front door.
Well, I have this problem.
....
But it's not an anger problem. It's a front door problem.
Like any fairly good wacky gadget story mine begins with a
basic problem.

You see I have to have a lot of things from electronics companies
delivered to me. And they need signatures.
Which means I need to hear the front door.
Now you may have thought that this problem was solved back
in 1831 when the doorbell was invented. But sadly I do not have one.

And besides that I still have an issue.

To block out my upstairs neighbors I listen to loud music in my
headset. Thus, on days when I'm awaiting a delivery I have to
listen for the door. And every time I hear something that
remotely sounds like a knock, bump, bang or smash. I have to
leap up and check the front door.

Work. Work. Work.
Blam.
Get up and check.
No one there.
Go back.

Work. Work. Work.
Bang.
Get up and check.
... no one...

Work. Work. Work.
Crash.

This
got
old.

Now a normal person might go to the hardware store and
pick up a radio door bell. ... In fact, I did try that.
The device didn't work and therefore Ace stole my money.
Go figure.
But I assure you that this was not my primary course of action.
(I had obtained the useless Ace Doorbell after
thinking my part was about to come the next day and I had not
managed to finish this project before then)

So anyway, I reasoned that sticking a plastic door bell on the outside
wall in this neighborhood may not be the wisest course of action anyway.

I realized that I could mount a sensor on the other side of the door and
use the vibration to detect the door knocks. This would prevent unsightly
buttons and things from needing to be placed on the outside.

No bumps and thus a clean streamlined design.
(I like to think more Zen-like in my interface design I suppose.)

The device would then pop up a message on my screen thus preventing
me from having to worry about any noise coming from that front room.

Now you know what that 'slick prototype' was for
It's a sensor that detects door knocks.
... Most of the time.

A near by computer...(The Door Computer)..... Yes the DOOR
computer registers the knock and sends the message over
my local network to the computer in my office.
I know what you're thinking...
But messenger pigeons are far too messy to be used indoors.

Anyway, the message is read by another program I wrote for
my office computer and I see the knock message show up in
the corner of my screen.

Thus, freeing me to block out ceiling dweller noise and other
irritations while preventing me from missing all my deliveries
and having to drive one town over to pick them up from the station.
That was annoying.

And if all that isn't crazy enough consider this...

It was easier to have my door text me knocks than it was to
write the code for messaging a nearby computer.

That's right, I live in an apartment where my front door texts me knocks.

And by the way, I had to kick it so I could see the screen at the same time
as I activated the sensor.