Student Teams

For the final project, the class of 16 students were placed into four teams of four students.

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Group 41 (inspirationally engaged)

Our clock was designed to look like a bicycle frame. It has relatively simple mechanics composed of the major clock subsystems: a mainspring, gear train, vertical escapement, balance wheel, and hairspring. The frame supports the axles that run through each component. There is an encoder wheel mounted on the escape wheel, which passes through the encoder on the platform. The clock itself is entirely 3D printed, but various screws, nuts, and washers are used to mount the clock to the platform and weight the balance wheel.

Group 23 (peacefully excited)

Our team designed a clock that could harness the energy from the "ocean" and discharge it into our mainspring so that it could run forever. We split up the clock into four major subsystems: regeneration, mainspring/geartrain, escapement, and measurement. Initially, we pursued two different types of escapement in an effort to obtain that which worked most effectively, eventually deciding upon the Swiss Lever Escapement as it began working first. We used Trello to organize our tasks and document our progress over the weeks. Then, over the course of the week before competition, we printed all of the parts for our clock and assembled them as a team. The first two assembled, working clocks were those that were presented during the competition. The constant iteration made this project enjoyable, as we got to collaborate with one another until the design work was complete. Additionally, watching the concept start as a 3D model and eventually materialize into a bunch of parts and then, finally, a fully functional clock, was inspiring. One major hurdle we faced was designing the regeneration system's pendulum to oscillate at the most effective frequency relative to the oscillation of the print bed. Additionally, we struggled to produce all of our clocks on time due to the task of printing so many parts with so little time allotted.

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Group 75 (confidently exhilarated)

Our team set out to build a clock that was more “clock-like” compared to previous designs in Spring 2020. While we initially designed our components around a circular plate to mimic a wall clock, we finalized on an octagon shape to simplify prints and assembly. Our clock is separated into two areas with the mainspring assembly on the bottom, the escapement and balance wheel assemblies on top, and the gear train connecting the two planes. By keeping the escapement and balance wheel and hairspring isolated on the top plate, this allowed for simple integration. If issues were to arise on the bottom half of the clock, then the top plate could easily be unscrewed and placed to the side without affecting its alignment. For mitigating problems, this design helps contain the issues in one area and negates the probability of translating problems to other subassemblies when attempting to problem solve.

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Group 68 (joyfully grateful)

Island time, mon! Our team designed our chronometer compactly horizontal to try to minimize mechanical disturbances. Through clever use of gear trains, we managed to get a 20:1 gear ratio while keeping the design compact, in order to fit within the 200mmx200mm build plate area. With summer on the horizon- we designed the frame plates as palm trees exciting proceeding vacay. The palm tree theme turned out to be dually purposed as our halved proper tick length truly came to embody ‘island time’.

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