[Ivan Miranda] is taking a really fascinating method to a marble clock. His design is a big meeting that makes use of black and white marbles to create a (type of) dot matrix show. It’s half kinetic artwork and half digital clock, all pushed by marbles.

Right here’s the way it works: black and white marbles feed into an enormous elevator. This elevator lifts marbles to the highest of the curved runs that make up the largest a part of the gadget. The horizontal space on the backside is the place the time is proven, with white and black marbles making up the numerical show. However how to ensure the white marbles and black marbles go in the suitable order?

The answer to that’s easy. Marbles feed into the elevator in an unpredictable order. An array of sensors detects the colour of every marble. Solenoids merely eject any marble that isn’t in the suitable place. For instance, if the subsequent marble for observe n must be white, then merely kick out any black marbles in that place till there’s a white one. Easy, efficient, and ensures loads of mesmerizing transferring elements.

After all, which means marble ejection and marble shade sensing must be completely dependable, and [Ivan] bumped into issues with each. Marble ejection took some cautious element testing and choice to get the suitable solenoids.  Colour sensing (in addition to detecting empty areas) settled on IR-based sensors generally utilized in line-following robots.

You’ll be able to watch the clock in motion within the video embedded under just below the web page break. We advocate giving it a glance, as a result of [Ivan] does an important job of exhibiting all the little challenges that reared their heads, and the way he addressed them. There are nonetheless a number of issues to deal with, however he expects to have these licked by the subsequent video. Within the meantime, [Ivan] asks that if anybody is aware of a supply for prime quality glass marbles in bulk, please let him know. Low high quality ones range in dimension and have a tendency to get caught.

Marble clocks are nice expressions of creativity, particularly now that 3D printing is frequent. We love clock hacks, so when you ever create or run throughout a very good one, tell us about it!