Clocks come in many styles and sizes, with perhaps the most visually pleasing ones involving marbles. Watching these little spheres obey gravity and form clearly readable numbers on a clock has strong mesmerizing qualities. If you’re not into really big marble clocks, or cannot quite find the space for a desk-sized clock, then the tiny marble clock by [Jens] may be an option.
While he totally loved the massive marble clock that [Ivan Miranda] built, it is a massive contraption that’s hard to justify as a permanent installation. His take on the concept thus makes it as small as possible, by using a pick-and-place style arm to place the marbles instead. Although the marbles don’t do a lot of rolling this way, it’s decidedly more quiet, and replace the rumbling and click-clacking of marbles with the smooth motion of a robotic arm.
Another benefit of this clock is that it’s cheap to make, with a price tag of less than $23. A big part of this is the use of cheap SG90 micro servos, and a permanent magnet along with a mechanism that pushes the marble off said magnet. Perhaps the biggest issue with this clock is that the arm somewhat obscures the time while it’s moving around, but it’s definitely another interesting addition to the gallery of marble clocks.
We have previously seen such clocks built out of wood and brass as well as 3D-printed using pendulum mechanisms, which can be made pretty compact as well, albeit with a more analog vibe.
Thanks to [Hari] for the tip.
Cool project, clever mechanism.
I understand the tongue-in-cheek nature of projects like this. Their impractical nature is part of their charm. But I can also envision “art” clocks like this serving a useful purpose… in a store window (to garner attention), in a glass cabinet, or in a display case… in public space… like an airport terminal, bus station, or maybe a waiting room or lobby where people are otherwise bored and would be entertained watching some machine struggle to keep up… with time.
The academic challenge of designing this clock now solved… I wonder what kind of operating life could be expected from it. If activated and left on 24/7, will this still be functional in a month?… in a year? Not a criticism by any means… a serious question. How do plastic pieces like those in this project hold up?
Really cool, both the build and parts used.
Not a huge fan of him paywalling it all though.
Magnetic marbles. Nice idea. The arm is unnecessary large, bordering with ugliness. What about whole marble 36×36 marblepixels display? Yes, my morning coffee was a little bit tasteless:/
Two small things to add, maybe:
1. midnight is 00:00, not 0:00;
2. you can mark the passing of the minute by droping a ball or other gesture of the arm.
Nice project. Now do it with ballpen balls ;)
I quite like this clock and think he did well. It is, like watching a model railway, fascinating to see the movements creating each digit, even if they are repetitious.
If there were sufficient space for the extra code, I would have created an optimising algorithm to minimise the movement. Apart from the aesthetics, possibly, there is no need for the balls to be picked up from and put back at the right end of the ball supply at the top.
Or he could have the top filled with balls and use balls from the same relative position at the top as in the clock at the bottom, creating a reverse image of the time there. So, to create the digit 2, he would have to pick up the balls from the top in the same 2-pattern as he would use at the bottom, thus have the 2 defined by the missing balls at the top and by the placed balls at the bottom.
Lastly, this design seems to lend itself to a construction using milled metal parts for durability.
The possibilities are legion.
I think that given the opportunity for it to be clever with the marble sourcing/storage to minimize movement would have made it much more interesting to watch, too. If it didn’t “just” use the marble storage at the top as a stack, emptying from the right first, and the digits would leave interesting noise at the top.
Even a greedy allocator should return acceptable results, and you’d ?only? need 17×3 bits of storage. Or if you want to steal marbles from later digits that will be deallocated, 17×9 bits.
This is awesome. I just wonder if we could find any less noisy servo motors for daily use at home.
All the servos I have used have been noisy. You could get better results using brushless motors or servos or perhaps just stepper motors with silent drivers.
Someone needs to make low cost brushless servos with feedback.