This is the XXI Century Sundial, created by Alessandro using an Arduino microcontroller, a wall, and a laser.
This is a simple project of a sundial wherein the pinion is replaced by a line LASER I took from a LASER level. The LASER is mounted on a RC servo which in turn is driven by a micro controller. The micro controller keeps the time and turns the RC servo accordingly. … Shorting pins 1-2 adds some life to the sundial and makes it count just the seconds. Hypnotic initially, then pointless.
Originally put together using an Atmel controller, it is “very basic in design it does exactly what I wanted,” Alessandro writes.
XXI century sundail — Now for Arduino also ! [5volt via Make]
Why waste a microcontroller to tell time? Attach a light piece of wood or metal about a foot long, and make one end a pivot. Put a slot in the middle, and have a pin on the end of the hour hand of an analog clock go through the slot. Attach the line laser to the stick. That wouldn’t make the same movement as shown in the pic, but a little tweaking of the basic idea should get you the same results.
Laserhenge, with little people dancing around it.
More seriously, I love this project.
@ANONYMOUS(A different one, obviously):
This isn’t the 80′s anymore. Microcontrollers are cheaper, smaller, lighter, and more reliable than analog clocks.
This is cool, but it’s more accurate to say it’s using a LASER (aren’t we good for using the upper case acronym?) as a clock hand. A sundial is powered by the sun’s position, no?
But still cool. They did it, I didn’t.
Q: “What time is it?”
A: “Its about half past thrAAAAAHHH MY EYES!!! I’M BLIND I’M BLIND AAAAAAH”
Hey, it really does go to 11!
Elegant little piece. I think it would get old for me after a while, but…
Cool, and I do agree with Muteboy, but whenever I see LASER written in all caps I think of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Next step: a laser stonehenge. 18″ high, obviously.
Laserhenge.
Yes.