technabob » hands

chasing time wall clock never stops changing itself

technabob — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:17:20 +0000

At first glance, this looks like any ordinary old wall clock. But take another look, and you’ll see that there’s nothing ordinary about the way that it works.

You see, the hour markers around the perimeter of designer J.P.Meulendijks‘ Chasing Time clock gradually change positions as the minutes pass. It’s designed so every time you look up at the clock, it looks just a little bit different than the last time you looked at it.

At least the clock hands work the way you’d expect, so you can still tell what time it is – even if you are completely hypnotized by the outer moving bits. If you’re looking for something different to hang on your wall you can order the Chasing Time clock from Swedish design shop pid.se for $359 (USD).

[via GeekAlerts]

god hand robot ready to get you with his kung-fu grip

technabob — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Give your robot a hand (or two) with these incredibly complex mechanical digits from Japan’s Crafthouse. Instead of the typical grippers you might find on a hobby robot, Crafthouse’s servo-controlled GOD HANDs give miniature robots a set of flexible digits that work much like their human masters’ appendages.

While each finger can’t be independently controlled, they’re still pretty amazing. Check out the video below to see these marvels of mechanical engineering in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The cream of the crop handmade miniature hands cost a bank-account-draining ¥180,000 (appx $1935 USD), but the craftsmanship and engineering feat alone could justify the high cost for true robot fanatics. And don’t forget you’ll still have to spend another ¥16,000 (appx. $171 USD) per hand on a Kondo KRS-4014SHV servo motor to drive each one.

If your pockets aren’t deep enough to afford a pair of GOD HANDs, Crafthouse is offering a pair of hands called the Melissa Hand Type-1, retailing for “just” ¥60,000 (appx. $645 USD). Because they’re mass-produced, the Melissa hands are quite a bit bigger, so don’t expect to put them on a really small robot. Still, they’re pretty cool.

[Crafthouse via Moriyama's Diary via Plastic Pals]

storm synth watch has nine hands, still somehow manages to tell the time

technabob — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:10:57 +0000

You’ll have to rely on your keen powers of observation to figure out the current time on this new watch from Storm.

The limited-edition Storm Synth conceals the current time by taking standard hour hand, minute hand, second hand equation and multiplying it by three. The trick to reading the time on the Synth is to keep your eye on the hands that have the tiny pointers on their tips. All of the other hands are actually decoys.

At least if it’s gonna confuse the heck out of you, the Synth looks good while doing it. The watch features a substantial modern metal design and suspends the watch movement inside of an open “cage,” encased in crystals on all sides.

So if you’re ready to start tripling the amount of time it takes to check the current time, you can grab the Storm Synth in either stainless steel ($170 USD) or slate black finishes ($199 USD) over at Watchismo.

[via The Watchismo Times]

tell time on the outer limits with the rim clock

karen m. — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:35:13 +0000

The Rim Clock turns all that you know about clocks inside out. Instead of staying put and pointing to numbers like the hands of other, more well-behaved clocks, the hands on the Rim Clock are actually protrusions that go around the outside and point to the wall.

The Rim Clock was designed by Jansen Lye to be minimalist and distinctive. I think it looks a lot like you have an avant-garde sculpture on your wall instead of a clock. In case you’re wondering, the pointy thing is the minute hand, and the roundy thing is the hour hand.

One caveat about the utility of this this clock: although it looks great, unless you’ve painted, penciled, stenciled and/or taped numbers to your wall, you probably won’t always be exactly on time. Great looks? Check. Innovative design? Check. Reliable, precise time-telling? Not so much.

Of course, like a whole bunch of other really cool things, it’s still in concept phase. (Sigh.) See more at Jansen Lye’s website.

clock hands stay put, numbers move instead

technabob — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:55:18 +0000

Unlike a normal clock, this funky modern timepiece keeps its hands stationary, letting the numbers on its dial rotate around the hands to tell the time. A simple gear-drive mechanism moves the outer ring around the clock mechanism.

The desk clock gets it’s name, “Pisa” from it’s eye-catching leaning tower design. And if you really feel like going all out with the 12th-century Italy theme, the dial can be reversed to show roman numerals instead of digits.

So far I’ve only been able to find this clock from Korea’s Earlyadopter Mall (priced at 15,800 KRW, about $17 USD) but post a comment if you manage to find them somewhere in North America.