Description

My clock is based around the ancient sundial. The sundial uses the sun and the position of the shadows from the sundial (triangle shape) to tell time. It is novel to me because it does not rely on electricity,computers, and chips like the clocks we use today. I may create my own sundial one day and use it to track time and feel closer to nature.

Design Process

I looked up ways time was tracked in ancient time and then looked up YouTube videos to see how they worked. Then, I narrowed my search down to three clocks: the sundial, hourglass, and water clock. Afterwards, I wrote psuedocode for each to determine which one seemed to be the most practical. The sundial I was able to write the most code for it. I still consulted one of my classmates during lab.

Initial Sketches:

Reflection

This assignment turned out to be the most difficult so far. I designed the clock to look like a traditional sundial. Sundials have a gap between 6 and 7 where designs like a sun were placed. When it came time to code the shadows, this design choice made it more difficult to move the shadows. I ended up having a tutoring session with Jason Li and he helped me get started with coding the shadows. I did the rest on my own and asked him questions on Slack. Despite the difficulty of the assignment, I did learn a lot and I can look back at this assignment when we get to more complex assignments.