For the clock project, I want to expand on this solenoid valve project I worked on over the summer, where I mapped Covid case data to the rate of water drips. I originally only wanted the visual effect of water dripping on water, but ended up really liking the mechanical sounds of the solenoid valve and the tinkling as the droplet hits the water. The mechanical sound especially is very anxiety inducing, speeding up and slowing down, which feels like a perfect summary of the last two years of the pandemic.
So I originally intended to map three datasets to three separate water dripping mechanisms to see what feelings those sounds elicit, and perhaps also putting something underneath it to see how it'd erode with the waterdrips. They will loop through January 2020 to know over the course of five minutes (tentative):
- One tick per day using solenoid valve and water
- Continuous flow mapped to Covid case data using peristaltic pump and black ink
- Flow mapped to personal menstrual data using peristaltic pump and red ink
Even though I'm fairly certain of the components I'll use, I'm still not sure what kind of physical form I want them to take on, or how they should be arranged relative to each other. I was going to try sketching some ideas but after starting on Carlo Rovelli's Order of Time, I'm considering starting with some digital experiments first to rapidly iterate and then arrive at the physical form. Some things I want to consider:
- Time passes at different rates at different locations—there is no uniform time, but countless times—and time is slower closer to a large mass.
- We think of time as a flow of time, but in nature there's nothing distinguishing "past" and "future" except where there is heat involved. Entropy increases but never decreases.
The first point especially helped me figure out the order, from inside to outside: the menstrual data (in red), covid data (in dark purple), and time (in blue). The animation ticks once per day.
Here's my first attempt, where a full circle is a full year and it looks quite boring because the animation is so uniform:
I really didn't like the uniformity of the "clock" arms, so I decided to try varying what the full clock circle is mapped to just like in a real clock. I tried a few different combinations, but really liked:
- Time and menstrual cycle making a full clock revolution in 31 days
- Covid cases making a full revolution after one year
This helped me see the seasonality in Covid cases, as well as my monthly menstrual cycle patterns. I also had a happy accident in how my code was implemented, where the menstrual cycle arm only animates when there's actual flow/period data—which helps me see when the last day of the period was and also builds anticipation in me waiting to see where in the month my cycle starts next.
The design is definitely very rough around the edges. If I have the time, I'd change the typeface, clean up the visual ticks, and play around more with the spacing.
But I don't have any more time, so here it is haha:
Peristaltic pump
When I saw Phil Caridi's Time project from last year I knew I wanted to talk to him. He ended up sharing with me that he used a peristaltic pump, which gives really fine grain control of water dispensing rate and even flow (which the solenoid valve doesn't give me). It also has the added benefit of being able to pass through any sort of liquid without having to worry about ruining the electronic or mechanicl parts, which is perfect for my colored ink/dyes idea.
Phil was super kind and lent me his Peristaltic pump as well as the driver he used to control it:
- TMC2208-V3.0 (motor driver):
- Logic voltage: 3.3-5V
- Motor voltage: 4.75-36V
- Motor phase current (?): 1.4A (Root Mean Square?), peak 2A
- 256 subdivision
I ended up following this guide from FabLab Kannai to do the wiring and run the test code and it worked beautifully. The only thing is that the whole setup made no noise, and I found out from this stepper motor comparison guide that the TMC2208 that Phil lent me is a really nice (and more expensive one) whose selling point is that it makes no noise. But I specifically want the noise, so I'm going to look at the cheaper alternatives next :D