Time-telling Music Player

Design Process

I had three different concepts for my initial design. One was to have my friend’s pet Shiba Inu sit in front of a window, and move the shadows based on the time of day. The color outside of the window would change as well, with the sun and moon rising and setting. I was afraid that I would not be able to change the shape of the shadows reflecting the time so I did not choose this sketch. The second sketch was of a Japanese Bamboo Fountain that essentially pours water into another hollow bamboo, and everytime the water becomes full in the second bamboo, the water pours out into the basin below. This, I thought, would be a fun sketch to do, but I was unsure how to make it seem like the water was running, and to program the water filling up into the second hollow-ed out bamboo. The third sketch, which I used for this exercise, had more potential to it. I figured I would use the vinyl to show either the hour or minute, and sync the volume knob for either the minute or seconds.

Sketch #1- Doge Sitting by Window

Sketch #2- Japanese Bamboo Fountain

Once I finished the base of the record player, I started with the vinyl record first. Iinitially wanted the lines to represent the hour. At first, I was very confused with the ways to go about it because the if and if else statements I put in were not working. Frustrated, I switched it up and decided to make the lines represent the minutes. Instead of putting 60 lines to represent each minute (which would have been a lot to code!), I decided to put in 13 lines, each representing the minutes in 5 minute intervals. I did this by using the map function, where I was able to place the range of the needle pointing to the lines contract and expand depending on the minute. One thing I really wanted to do, but was unable to do, was to make the needle go back and forth. Instead, it currently goes back from the 13th line to the 1st line when the minute hits 0.

Next, I wanted to represent the hour using the volume knob. This was way easier than adjusting the vinyl record to represent the minute. I decided to make an arc that syncs expands as the hours go by, as well as a line that points to the hour. Since the hour function ranges from 0-24, I had to adjust it so that the range would be 0-12. Again, I used the map function to make the arc and line move according to the time.

Lastly, I also wanted to represent the seconds, so I created a pitch adjustment switch. I was able to make this without any problems. The switch moves from the top of the switch to the bottom of the switch as each seconds go by. I also added some time markers for convenience. Similar to the vinyl, I wanted to make the switch to move in a smooth, up and down movement. However, I was unable to figure out a way to make it glide up and down and move back up again. I hope to figure this out so that I can improve my experimental clock!

Overall Reflection/ What have I learned throughout the process of designing an unconventional clock?

This assignment was the most challenging yet. I experimented with a lot of functions and variables. I was really happy that I got to explore the map function and I can see why everyone uses this! I realized I need more help with the if statements, and although this particular sketch didn’t use if statements, I would like to use it in my next sketch so that I could understand it more. The process of designing an unconventional clock was really difficult because there are so many ways to portray time. Even though I wanted to experiment with something more abstract, like the dog sketch I mentioned earlier, I am very happy with what I created because my sketch represents the way I read time throughout the day.