Color Clock Comes Alive

It’s been only a month since I created a JavaScript prototype of my color clock idea. If you’re not the “clicking on links” type, here’s the basic idea: the hours and minutes of the current time are represented by colors that give you a sense of what time it is — but a gentle one. It would be hard to tell if you are late to a meeting, for example, but you can see the passing of the afternoon. My concept was that this is an art piece, a conversation piece, and lastly a timepiece for a place where you don’t have to think about appointments and deadlines. “It’s getting kind of orange,” you might say, “time for a cup of tea.”

I started working on this idea back in the days when analog was the obvious way to go. My first attempts involved colored spirals on sheets of acetate that would be rotated against each other by a clock motor. You know, the kind of clock motor you would buy and stick through a CD to make a clock that reminds you of your favorite band. Yeah, that was a thing.

All of those analog attempts failed.

But Arduino changed all that. Arduino is part of the maker movement, trying to help people who don’t think they know enough to build something. I’m a fair shade-tree programmer with not much electronics knowledge at all. In fact, Arduino made this project so easy that anyone with really any level of electronics knowledge would be able to do this with flair and panache. But since I am below that level, I was luckily able to consult with my uncle who does know about electronics.

And here is the result!

This prototype looks like a mess, but it’s functional. It is showing some time before 8:00 AM, which on the JavaScript Color Clock looks like this:

The next steps, of course, are to make this into something less messy and more beautiful. It’s been a very interesting journey. I have enjoyed having this newly-functioning prototype keeping me company during the day. I expect to post a better-looking update soon!