Plan and Sketch a Potential Final Project
Whereabouts Clock
The whereabouts clock is an analog clock-like device. Instead of showing the time, the different hands rotate to point to general status information about what is going on currently with different individuals of personal importance. It may show general location (e.g., home or work), but it may also show status (e.g., traveling or asleep).
This would be for personal use to connect with family.
A variation on showing data for individuals may be to keep track of general state on other kinds of data that can be put, such as weather in differnt places, main investments in a portfolio, or suchlike.
Inspirations
The whereabouts clock draws inspiration from the Weasley family grandfather clock from the Harry Potter book series. There are a number of projects that have tried to recreate this type of clock to a greater or lesser degree in form and/or function.
- Build Your Own "Weasley" Location Clock!
- Weasley Clock - Printable Props
- Weasley Clock - Randomstring
- Weasley Family Clock
- Lego Collectible Weasley Clock
In addition, there have been some research projects that considered this kind of location-in-interaction device for shared remote presence - supporting family connectedness, identity, and awareness.
- The whereabouts clock: early testing of a situated awareness device
- Locating Family Values: A Field Trial of the Whereabouts Clock
- Supporting Family Awareness with the Whereabouts Clock
Primary Components
Housing and Face
The housing is the general enclosure for the device. It will be styled along the lines of the top of a grandfather clock. This will most likely be designed and cut flat in wood for assembly.
The clock face shows the different status categories for individuals or other data. This will most likely be designed and cut flat in wood, but other materials or options may be considered.
Hands and Spindle
The hands of the clock have (1) a central mount point for attaching to the spindle, (2) an identifier to know who or what the status refers to, and (3) a clear point indicator to identify status on the face of the clock. The design could include decorative tracework along the body of each hand. There is broad scope for creating the hands, which may be a variety of cut or 3D printed materials.
The combined spindle is a set of nested connectors, one for each of the hands, inside a central mount. Each connector needs to be able to rotate independently to control one of the hands. The outer-facing ends need to support connection to the hands. The inner-facing ends need to support (likely geared) connection to motors for actuating the hands.
Motors and Circuit
In order to actuate the hands, each spindle connector is driven by a motor, most likely stepper motors for full clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation. Baseline design is one motor per hand of the clock, though fancier configurations may be considered.
Clock functionality will be controlled by an embedded systems board. This will bring together the elements of (1) power connection and on/off, (2) motor drivers, (3) data connection to receive status information, (4) processing control for actuation.
Extension Ideas (Not Planned As Part of Core Project Implementation)
I expect that the baseline project will be plenty to be getting on with. But there were a lot of ideas for potential extensions beyond the core project in keeping with the clock theme. I wanted to keep track of these as reminders. These include:
- Additional decorative overlay for the housing
- Swappable hands / clock face to allow for different information display
- LED lighting - which could show additional channels of information or clock state through the housing or through the clock face
- Additional physical animated clock parts (e.g., cuckoo clock)
- LCD display - tiny displays as part of the hands, or larger display to drive parts (or whole) of clock face
- Gravity Battery - as with weight-driven mechanical clocks, use a weighting system to drive parts of the clock function