Weather Clock

Ever forget to check the weather and end up without an umbrella? Introducing the Acrylic Weather Clock, an elegant weather forecasting device. Adorn your entryway with this stylish piece, and conveniently access weather forecast information before stepping out!

Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266

Acrylic Sheet x3

• Amber Transparent Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8"
• Light Blue Transparent Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8"
• Frosted Satin Ice Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8" 

Adafruit Servo x2(MG996R Servo Motor Metal Gear Servo Motor)

Wood board

In this step, we'll be using the Adafruit Feather Huzzah ESP8266 for programming and control. We'll fetch weather data over the internet using the cloud data service Adafruit IO and the API gateway site If This Then That (IFTTT).

1. Create a new feed in your Adafruit IO account and name it "precipitation."
2. Find your AIO key on the "Settings" page.
3. Download the code and open it using the Arduino IDE. Update the settings to match your Adafruit IO username and key, as well as your WiFi network name and password. Make sure to install the Arduino libraries "ArduinoHttpClient," "Adafruit IO Arduino," and "Adafruit MQTT." Upload the code to your board.
4. Connect the circuits

After uploading the test code to the board, and connecting the circuits, the connected lights and servos will give feedback whenever data input such as "cloudy," "rain," "sunny," or "snow" is received through IO. The motor will rotate to indicate success.

4.Create four IFTTT applets that use Weather Underground triggers to monitor weather changes. Whenever the weather changes, it will be sent to the "precipitation" feed on IO. Since it's challenging to monitor weather changes directly, we still use IO for data input testing.

1.Prepare Adobe Illustration vector files for clouds, raindrops, and the sun. You can draw them yourself or use the files I prepared.

Use laser cutting on acrylic sheets with different patterns and colors. I used:

• Amber Transparent Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8"
• Light Blue Transparent Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8"
• Frosted Satin Ice Acrylic Sheet - 6" x 12" / 1/8"
• The Frosted Satin Ice Acrylic Sheet as the top layer for clouds can blur the edges of raindrops and the sun, allowing colors to shine through. Of course, you can use other acrylics like fluorescent, opaque, or mirrored for different aesthetics.

2.Cut a long strip of transparent acrylic here to connect my acrylic pieces and the motor. You can choose any suitable long strip item for connection, like a transparent acrylic tube.

1. Cut a rectangular wooden board around 1/4" thick to the shape of the motor using a saw and embed the motor into it.
2. Use a hot glue gun to fix raindrop and sun acrylic pieces onto the motor's shaft through the long strip. Pay attention to the movement positions of clouds, the sun, and raindrops for the best effect.
3. Download a basic motor rotation code and upload it for testing. The code controls the rotation of two motors alternately by 60 degrees to determine the acrylic's position.

1. Fix cloud acrylic pieces onto the wooden board using two long strips.
2. Cut wooden boards of suitable lengths to cover the motor area by measuring dimensions.
3. If you've purchased a smaller RGB LED strip, you can use it for testing. If it's a larger strip, you can choose to use it for decorating your Weather Clock!