My Big Idea II (Passing Time)

So, I came up with a name for this crazy machine. It's going to be called a 'Patachronic Clock. This is from the French school of philosophers, writers and artists called the 'Pataphysique (the apostrophe is meant to be there, apparently it stops confusion with the translation.) These guys believed in the extension of metaphysics to another degree, you can find out more about them here.

This is Version 2 of the wheel. My ever-inspiring father came up with the idea of using bicycle wheels and extending the circumference to save work on constructing wooden wheels as well as weight and expense.

This version would be powered by three AC motors running at different speeds. Yet again, the concept is that the lowest ring spins once a minute, the middle ring, once an hour and the upper ring once every 12 hours. The clocks on the lowest ring are set one second behind eachother and the middle ring, one minute behind each other, the upper ring, 12 minutes behind eachother. This would mean that at any time all the clocks at any vertical position tell the same time. Making it an extension of the metaphor of a clock, into another dimension.

The first 100 clocks I need arrived last week, here they are sitting in the box. They're smaller than I originally thought, which is good because I can scale down the clock and thus save myself more time and hardship.

I was then thrown the idea of using one powerful motor and gearing to run all the wheels at separate speeds. YES, this will be harder, YES this will be more frustrating to make, YES this will involve huge amounts of accuracy but YES it will look a million times more stunning.

So after digging around in this box of scraps:

I found this motor:

Had no idea what these meant:

And proceeded to try and kill myself by blowing myself up through an amateurish knowledge of engineering and mechanical physics. I basically need more help with this to avoid further near-death experiences. But I'm outsourcing some engineering expertise.

Then it was time to look at designing the gearing for this ridiculous thing. After spending a long time running through maths and calculating ratios based on this model of the gearing of a normal clock:


Then it was proto-typing time, I made a model of the gears I'd need from lego and plugged a motor onto it to see if it worked.

Gloriously enough, it did. I'll make a video of it soon, a full model of the clock wasn't possible sadly as lego isn't quite good enough to make large gears with.

After that, it was time to apply my newly found gearing system to the computer model of the clock. Lo and behold, Version 3 of the newly named 'Patachronic Clock:

I've also began to commission illustration from a good friend of mine at Telegramme to do designs for cutaways on all the wheels, we're looking at stained-glass window, baroque, romantic illustrations and damask patterns. Probably inspired by things that inspired this projects like Raymond Roussell's Locus Solus, the Absurdists, the 'Pataphysicians, OuLePou and Faucault.