A Clockwork Useless Machine Prototype

usless-machine-mechanical-clockwork

Most of us have seen the [Useless Machine] where a switch is flipped and a finger comes out to turn it off, retreating into it's box again. Most of those are electrical, but why not a [Useless Machine] made only of mechanical clockwork? Apparently this has been done before, but why not one more? After some rough, sketches, and almost no research, I finally "came up with" a way to do this … [Read more...]

Arduino boards control cheap clockworks via coil injection

arduino-control-clock-coil

Here's a couple of clocks that use Arduino boards to control inexpensive clockworks. The concept is quite simple, and perhaps best outlined by [Matt Mets'] article on the subject. As it turns out, these clockworks are driven by a coil, forming a device that is quite similar to a stepper motor. If you solder a wire onto each end of the electromagnetic coil and hook those to a microcontroller, you … [Read more...]