NYC Tidal Clock

Intention

The goal of this project was to create an analog clock modeled in Fusion 360 and cut using the Rabbit laser cutters. Not only would it tell the time of the earth day, but it would keep track of the lunar day as well. So, you're able to tell whether it's low or high tide in your city. My home port is NYC so I wanted it based in that area for timezone AND tide. Plus, it would be a aesthetic thing to keep on the wall as a sailor.

Research & Context

Tidal clocks are all over the place but they're either corny, cliche, or don't tell time AND tide. Most of the time, they're souvenirs from resorts but I wanted one based on my home town, NYC. One really important thing I learned in my research was that a tidal day, unlike an Earth day, is actually 24 hour AND 50 minutes. So, I had to buy a special order kit online to get the result I wanted.

Sketch

In my initial sketch, I actually wanted to have two clock faces; one for each mechanism: one that would track an Earth day and one a lunar day. However, in the end, I managed to find a gearbox that tracks the time for each and combined the faces together. I was also experimenting a lot with compasses, astrolabes, cardinals, and maritime equipment in my first design, but I strayed away from this and instead decided to use a chart of NY harbor as my background.

The one thing that I really kept from this design was the rope around the exterior of the clock.