I've figured out I kinda have a thing for analog clocks. They're functional, you know telling the time and all, an can be very beautiful when you're big on the typography of numbers. That's why I love this laser sundial spotted on Make. In the same style as the Pottery Barn Kids Jumbo Wall Clock we featured many moons ago, with a wall-mounted clock mechanism surrounded by stuck-on decals for numbers, this laser sundial was a DIY project by a very tech-savvy individual...

The laser in this case was stolen from a laser level device and hitched up to an RC servo and a micro controller—whatever that means. Techie jargon in 3...2...1...

The micro controller keeps the time and turns the RC servo accordingly. Very basic in design it does exactly what I wanted and has as few parts as I could. The micro controller is an Atmel Attiny24 with crystal for better accuracy. The internal RC oscillator could be calibrated but in the end the precision can be achieved from a crystal quartz only.

The micro controller runs a real time clock. Time is converted into minutes from 1:00 hours and converted in PWM pulse which is suitable to drive an RC servo.

Whatever, we just think it's pretty cool. Maybe you can attach a laser pointer to the arm of a clock and make your own kind of sundial? No? That won't work? Well, maybe you need to take an engineering class and decipher the instructions to make your own here.

[ 5volt.eu via Make ]