This DIY, Light-Up Wooden Watch Was Made as a Delightfully Over-the-Top Gift
Credit to Author: Claire Downs| Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2017 18:06:27 +0000
In college, most of us hope for a roommate who won’t pass out naked on the floor, cradling a box of Cap’n Crunch. We spend semesters praying that the amber-colored elixir on the windowsill is just old apple juice, and not fermented urine. So when Harvard undergrad Harnek Gulati told his roommates Molly and Andrew that he was making them something special, they probably weren’t expecting something as intricate as the wooden watch you see above.
The aptly named Wooden Word Watch is a water-resistant, walnut-encased timepiece that uses LEDs to display the time both digitally and written-out through its 3D-carved characters. An embedded ATxmega microcontroller connected to a clock controls the LEDs, creating a very cool DIY watch that feels both retro and futuristic. Gulati programmed his first prototype for Andrew and as a project for an engineering class. But when he found that the battery only lasted an hour, he improved upon his first design and built Molly a more sturdy Spanish-language version with what he claims will be a two-year battery life.
Gulati presented these totally casual roommate presents at MIT’s xFair back in February, and this week posted the complete build on Reddit’s r/DIY. Within 24 hours, positive feedback led him to create a Kickstarter that has already raised nearly $50,000 in just a few days.
“The microcontroller has a 32.768khz real-time clock (RTC) embedded inside of it that keeps track of time. The microcontroller just counts the number of times the clock ticks,” Gulati told me in a Facebook message. “If I can set the time at say, 3:30, then it can count 60 ticks and update the time to 3:31. When you press the button, it figures out what letters to turn on based on the time, then turns it on for 5 seconds.”
Gulati’s Kickstarter describes the Word Watch as a “truly unique gift.” Yet, German clockmaker, Biegert & Funk’s QlockTwo W bears a striking, less-organic, resemblance (though the cheapest model retails for $750.) Gulati’s response to the similarity, pointed out by several Redditors: “I plead the fifth.” In any case, it’s a really cool, DIY homage.
“The [Kickstarter] production will most likely be outsourced to a local manufacturer because I want to be sure I can bike over to their facility and ensure quality,” Gulati said. “If I can’t find a good enough local manufacturer that can give me the quality I want, I’ll likely do it myself. I have a few professionals who I’ve contacted that are willing to help.”
Read More: This Build-It-Yourself Watch from the 70s Was Impossible to Put Together
As mere witnesses to Gulati’s DIY ingenuity, fans of the watch have asked whether there’s a romantic thruple between Molly, Andrew, and Harnek? “Bro, just tell Molly that you love her. Life is too short for that kind of bullshit <3," Redditor Kurumi420 commented.
In the interest of solving an internet mystery, I vowed to get to the bottom of this potential love triangle: “HAHAHAHAHA. I knew that question was going to be asked at some point. Naw. They’re my college roommates, who are like my best friends,” Gulati told me on Facebook Messenger. “Truth is, I just love them. I build things for all my close friends tho, although now I’ve stopped because that’s not really a scaleable approach to friendship.”
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