A Paper Arm Keeps the Lights On Through a Seated Meeting

Build and field test of a timer-driven waver beside the ceiling occupancy sensor

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities describes a counterweighted paper arm, released every nine minutes by a wind-up kitchen timer, that waves at the ceiling occupancy sensor of a windowless seminar room. Across 826 seated meetings in fourteen rooms, none of the 412 armed meetings lost the lights against 236 of 414 disarmed, and rooms with an arm are now booked in whole nine-minute waves and released only after its final sweep.

@misc{slop_qmw6fj,
  author       = {Verity Marris and Anouk Mensah and Iben Chikere},
  title        = {A Paper Arm Keeps the Lights On Through a Seated Meeting: Build and field test of a timer-driven waver beside the ceiling occupancy sensor},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.qmw6fj},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-to-establish-whether-qmw6fj/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}