Week 11

What will it do?

As part of my final project I'm planning to make a smart clock for my mother. Why I'm making this for my mother is because, My mother is in India and my sister is in New Jersey. They both have a time gap of -8:30 hours and I have always seen my mother counting on her fingers to subtract 8:30 hours from the Indian time to obtain the US time. So I want the clock to switch between Time Zones whenever my mothers wants to.

I believe this smart clock will be very useful for the fablabs because all the labs are dependent on EST (Eastern Standard Time) where the fab foundation is located and where Neil is. So this smart clock can be set to the local time of the lab and the time zone can be easily changed EST with just a flick of your hand

Who's done what beforehand?

I searched on the internet and found 2 intresting projects on analog clock.

• Ingrein Smart Clock
  A project on Kickstarter with almost the same concept as mine. The clock has a wooden frame and works with the quarts mechanism. It has a LCD screen and shows all the information using Wifi connection.
  


• Story: The Levitating Time Piece
  A project on Kickstarter with a stunning design. The most attractive part is the levitating metal ball that moves around the clock. It is a unique way to visualize time. It has smart connectivity and a seamless display.
  

What will I design?

I want my clock to look like a simple analog clock, because my parents are used to those. They don't recommened a digital clock.
To make an analog smart clock I have to design a mechanism to move the needles using stepper motors.
The clock should contain a microprocessor and a WiFi module to fetch time from the internet and to operate the motors.
The clock should have a sensing module to sense the action from my mother to change the time zone.
I should design a casing for holding the motors and all electronic components.

What materials and components will be used? Where will they come from? How much will they cost?

What parts and systems will be made?

The parts to be made for the clock include a wooden clock face with numbers, hour and minute needles, spur gears, circuit board and a casing to accomodate the PCB and the mechanism.

What processes will be used?

• CNC Milling : To make the clock face using plywood.
• Lasercutting : To make the hour and minute hand, back cover for the casing and a lock for the mechanism.
• 3D Printing : To make the spur gears.
• PCB Milling : To mill the main control board.

What questions need to be answered?

My main concern is how to automaticaly adjust the time during dayligt saving. Day light saving is a practice of manualy advancing the clock by 1 hour in USA during the warmer months, But this practice is not followed in India. So I need to find a program that can automaticaly find when dayligt saving starts and adjust the time accordingly.

How will it be evaluated?

The clock should look simple like any other analog clock.
The time should be always accurate, Because it's TIME and its valuable.

Project Execution Plan

I charted this in such a way so that I can finish the project in parallel to the pending weekly assignments. Some weeks have to be done serially in the same order like electronics design, milling, soldering etc. While some others could be completed anytime like 3D printing, lasercutting and shopbot.

I have considered all this while charting my project plan. I used google sheets to make a table to organize the tasks and made dates to start and end particular tasks so that I can complete the project within 1 week.