Build an Edo-style clock that measures unequal hours

I was reading a history book this week called The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin. The first of the three sections of the book deals with the subject of time. The invention of the mechanical clock is a surprisingly recent one. This means that the hour as we know it is also a fairly recent concept. The minute is still more recent. This fact is evident from some of the earliest mechanical clocks in Europe which have no minute hand at all. To this point, this material was familiar to me. It's only when the author turned his attention to the Japanese approach to the hour that my head was sent spinning.

The clocks developed in the Western world divided the day into 24 hours of equal length. This may seem logical to us now, but only because we have lived with it our entire lives. Before the clock was commonplace, a person's day was regulated by the light provided by the sun. In such a world, if you lived anywhere but on the equator, the length of your sunlit day changed with the seasons. If the length of the day changed, why not have the units that divide the day change in length also? This is apparently what the Japanese did.

During the Edo period, the Japanese employed a system of unequal hours based on sunrise and sunset. As the seasons changed, the length of a single hour also changed. It's an interesting concept to try to get your head around, is it not? What is even more fascinating to me is that the Japanese developed a mechanical clock that used this system. As if building a machine to keep regular time wasn't difficult enough, imagine designing one in which the length of an hour changed from day to day. But the complexities don't end there. If the season one was in had short days and long nights, that means hours during the day were shorter than hours at night. Not only do hours change from day to day, but also from day to night!

Imagine my delight, then, when I yesterday I also received a newsletters from the Maker Shed. They are having an overstock sale on various items -- one of which is the Edo-Style Clock Kit shown in the picture above.

I, for one, can't wait to learn how this amazing clock works. I've worked on a few real antique clocks, so much of what I will find in the kit should be familiar to me. If you haven't worked on clocks before, I imagine this kit would be a great introduction to learning how clocks work. Like many of the Gakken kits, the instructions are well-illustrated, but written in Japanese. Problem? Nope. You need only to visit the in-depth assembly guide titled Build a Gakken Edo-Style Clock created by Marc de Vinck that is posted on the Make Projects web site. The picture above comes from that project guide.

Though the Gakken Double-foliot Japanese Clock Kit is available from Amazon, the price is far better in the Maker Shed.

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Build a mini wind-powered Theo Jansen beast

If you are into the amazing mechanical life-forms created by artist Theo Jansen, then you'll be excited to learn about Gakken's Otona no Kagaku Kit #30. Called the Animaris Ordis Parvus, the kit is a tiny version of one of Jansen's huge wind-powered beach-walking creatures.

Here is one review of the Gakken's Otona no Kagaku Kit #30.
Here is a second review of Gakken's Otona no Kagaku Kit #30.

[ Found via this post at MAKE ]

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Gakken's Mechamo all-metal robot crab kit

Japanese mechanical toy maker, Gakken, offers a number of cool kits. The crab robot shown here is part of their "Mechamo" series. If you know someone who simply LOVES to put things together, this looks like a fun project. I'd wager that the all-metal construction is quite sturdy.

Here is a time-lapse video of someone assembling the Gakken Mechamo Crab (video 50 seconds, actual build 200 minutes).

Here is where you can get the Mechamo metal crab kit.

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Gakken's Stirling engine powered car kit

The other day, the Retro Thing blog drew my attention to this really awesome looking Sterling Engine Car Kit by Gakken.

From one review:

The kit has nice components. The instructions are complete (24 pages in Japanese). And, there are a whole bunch of tiny details to get lost in. The cylinder mount and the gears need to be carefully aligned. This is one of the trickier parts. If you have it misaligned, there will be too much friction for the engine to run. A gauge is supplied to make this step easier.

This and several other hard-to-find Gakken kits can be found at the Make Magazine MakerShed.

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DIY Programmable Bird Song Organ from Gakken

I posted some time ago about a programmable punch-card music box that uses paper sheets you punch yourself and the Gloggomobile -- it's upscale cousin that plays a Glockenspiel based on the placement of pegs you arrange on a wooden cylinder.

Here is another addition to the family of programmable mechanical music devices: the Gakken Bird Song Organ.

This kit provides everything you need to program a small hand-cranked chirping song bird organ. Another amazing kit from Gakken.

Here is a link to another video of the Programmable Bird Song Organ performing Amazing Grace.

You can buy the Gakken Bird Song Organ from The Japan Trend Shop.

[ More info on the MAKE Magainze Blog ]

Karakuri Acrobat Automaton Flipping Down Stairs

I posted in the past about Japanese Karakuri Ningyo. In particular, I mentioned the fantastic drawing karakuri. Gakken is a company that sells a few kit including a tea serving karakuri and archer karakuri that actually shoots miniature arrows.

Here is a tumbler or acrobat. I have also seen a similar design from a company in Germany, though I don't know who came up with the idea or if this is a case of independent invention. It's that last flip that really surprises me.

Here's one karakuri book and here is another karakuri book (both in Japanese).