I’ve always lived at middle latitudes of 35-40 degrees. I notice the change in daylight / nighttime hours across the course of a year; in the winter, ending work at a reasonable hour still feels like “working into the night”.
I wanted to have a little passive reminder about how much daylight I am / am not getting. Not one tied to my computer or phone – something more ambient. Naturally, a reminder of the passage of time is… a clock!
I have an idea of what I want, and what I want to learn.
I’ve procured the electronics, written some working software, and prototyped the physical design. I’ll be writing about each of those as they progress!
To start off with, I want a circular clock that tells me the time.
This is what a clock looks like, right?
I decided to go digital rather than analog for the clock display, as a way of bounding my goals – I don’t want to add “motors” to the mix for this project. (And I don’t think a Bulbdial-style clock would be easy to read!)
I thought about putting rise / set times alongside the current time. But I want something a little less discrete and more discreet: illuminating the edge of the clock with the portion of the day covered by daylight.
Now with more lights!
The edge represents a 24-hour clock in the local time zone: the top point is noon, the bottom midnight, and the left and right extrema 6AM/PM.
As I started the physical design, I decided I want the electronic components hidden from a face-on viewer. The edge illumination should cast light on the surrounding wall, not towards the room; the display should have a diffuser that hides unlit LEDs.
In a lot of my projects, “build the thing” is the nominal goal; “learn how to build the thing” is the underlying goal.
I’ve not made any non-fabric items since…elementary school? So this project was a chance for me to refresh my electronic prototyping skills (breadboarding, soldering, etc), and to build some physical manufacuring skills (3d printing, woodworking).
I’ll be posting articles about the electronics, software, and physical design soon. If you want to see them when they come out, you can follow my site’s RSS feed.
And if you want to talk more directly, reach out!