What a time to be alive
Wobbly clock
71–80 of 209 posts
Re: Wobbly clock
#72I saw somewhere on the internet a clock where the hand of the seconds moves at random irregular intervals, but averages out to 60 moves a minute. Extremely frustrating to watch. Edit: here's a video of it running (somehow the seconds hand runs backwards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU-zmNFSxw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XSp5FmXBo
> This clock is inspired by a post by ILAMtitan on the 43oh.com forums, which was in turn inspired by Vetinari's clock from the Discworld series of novels. Although the movement of the second hand is quite erratic, it ticks exactly 32 times in 32 seconds, and so keeps quite accurate time overall. The clock started life as a cheap $3 clock from KMart. It's mechanism was kept, but the driver circuit was removed and replaced with an MSP430 microcontroller. ILAMtitan's code is designed to ensure that every 32 seconds it will tick 32 times, but the exact timing of those 32 ticks is variable. There can be as little as 1/4 second between ticks or as much as 24 seconds. Overall though it will keep quite accurate time.
Re: Wobbly clock
#73Weirdly, I can hear this clock in a way
This was my first thought when I saw it too, I immediately found myself making a sound effect for each tick. It could definitely benefit from a tasteful sproingy sound effect!
Re: Wobbly clock
#74Cute, clever! But the way the minute hand stays pointing to a multiple-of-five-minutes until it Boings! to the next increment is disconcerting. It looks like it's slow all the time. E.g. 10:29 looks like 10:25 which is more than enough error to look wrong. Maybe I'd learn to read the bent-hand deflection after a while. But I guess I prefer the clock I have that just points to the right minute all the time.
> But the way the minute hand stays pointing to a multiple-of-five-minutes until it Boings! to the next increment is disconcerting.
Yeah, it would be a bit more satisfying if the end moves discontinuously (as it does now) but the stem moved continuously.
Still very nice as it is though.
Re: Wobbly clock
#75Not sure why, but watching this makes me very anxious. Especially when the second hand is bending,just before it springs loose. Neat idea though.
Re: Wobbly clock
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how a real life one could be made to look exactly the same (but I could be missing something). The seems to have something that stops the end of it moving on until enough tension has built up to side underneath it. That much is fair enough. But then that same thing stopping the end would also prevent the same satisfying wiggle when it gets to the next position because it overshoots immediately. The only t…
A physical implementation could use magnets to hold to the specific spots. Once enough torque is built on trying to move the hand, it would snap out of place and would then find the next magnet and 'hold' onto that spot. As an aside, I'm not sure that doing this for the hour hand is a "good" idea. The difference between 10:00 am and 11:00 am is significant and needing to check how much the bend is doesn't "feel" righ…
Using magnets would definitely make for a cooler look, but this effect can be done using nails of varying heights.
Re: Wobbly clock
#77I saw somewhere on the internet a clock where the hand of the seconds moves at random irregular intervals, but averages out to 60 moves a minute. Extremely frustrating to watch. Edit: here's a video of it running (somehow the seconds hand runs backwards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU-zmNFSxw
The second hand isn't running backwards, the numbers run the wrong way.
Keen eye, I did not realise at first glance.
Re: Wobbly clock
#78I saw somewhere on the internet a clock where the hand of the seconds moves at random irregular intervals, but averages out to 60 moves a minute. Extremely frustrating to watch. Edit: here's a video of it running (somehow the seconds hand runs backwards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU-zmNFSxw
Reminds me of a wall clock in my high school physics class that would struggle to pass 5 o'clock and ticked backwards and forwards a few times on its rotation through each minute, despite keeping good time. Its struggle through each minute reflected my own struggle through each minute in that class, however.
Re: Wobbly clock
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
A physical implementation could use magnets to hold to the specific spots. Once enough torque is built on trying to move the hand, it would snap out of place and would then find the next magnet and 'hold' onto that spot. As an aside, I'm not sure that doing this for the hour hand is a "good" idea. The difference between 10:00 am and 11:00 am is significant and needing to check how much the bend is doesn't "feel" righ…
Using magnets would definitely make for a cooler look, but this effect can be done using nails of varying heights.
The thing that I wonder about (with nails) would be "what would happen if the the flexihand was able to wiggle past the peg when it moved from one peg to the next?" In that case, I believe, it would just be a regular clock style hand.
It's possible that I've got the wrong mental model for how that would work.
Re: Wobbly clock
#80This reminds me of Marcin Wichary's recreation of a clock on Polish TV: https://aresluna.org/polish-tv-clock/
He has a great writeup about it here: https://medium.com/the-outtake/the-clock-85e8e3a50e4b