Before clocks and watches were able to tell what time it is, sundials were used by our ancestors. It is a device used by the people from 1500 BCE to the 14th century which measures the time of the day using the shadow cast by the position of the Sun. The sundial’s pointer known as gnomon was the primary indicator of time.
Surprisingly, these instruments are still being used today. For reasons that sundials can still tell time – after all, the sun is still out in space – one French engineer has come up with an idea to tweak the sundial’s design, and that is to bring it into the digital age.
It’s not really digital in a sense that whenever the sun’s shadow shifts through the sundial, the device shows a number from a digitized process. Close, but not quite. Instead, the 3D-printed sundial displays the time in 80s-style digital numbers.
The design of is so intricately done by its creator, Julien Coyne of Mojoptix, that every time the Earth spins on its axis, beams of light travel through a network of carefully calibrated holes embedded in the sundial to show a digital-style time. Its gnomon projects the right time on the plate.
Of course this doesn’t work at night. It has a few more major limitations: it was designed to be accurate only between 10 am to 4 pm, and can only tell time in 20-minute intervals.
That’s a bummer, if you ask me, but it’s still an amazing feat for a sundial.
Attempts to create the ‘digital’ sundial were made as early as 1994 but they failed miserably. They made sundials that were the usual boring, without the 80s display and retro sundial plate unlike this one by the French guy.
A ready-made version is for sale at the Etsy store. But people with 3D printers at home can have one on their own, just follow Mojoptix’s open-source instructions and the tutorial video below.
Source: Sundials
