Today I made some initial progress on one of my summer projects here at NYC Resistor – a rudimentary mock-up of the DOTKLOK hardware:
DOTKLOK will be an open source clock kit with multiple time-telling animations, some literal like the simple display above, and others showing the passage of time through abstract patterns, following on from my Electric Window 3 series.
The inspiration for this clock is to combine a bunch of cool ways to show time — such as in a sentence, with words, or retro game displays — along with my own original animations, while providing a platform on which others can further develop cool timepieces.
Thanks to a great RTC1307 tutorial and library by Adafruit, I was interfacing with the clock chip faster than expected, and soon had a rudimentary sketch up and running:
The font’s not too hot, but it’s the default one I had from the Electric Window 3 software. I’ll be developing several special time fonts and and animations over the next few weeks, along with designing a cool laser-cut acrylic case to round out a kit that’ll be great for both those who want to hack and mod the clock, and those who simply want to plug it in and enjoy.
