Wind Chime Clock - Grove Starter Kit

Sometimes, while I am working at my office table, I would accidentally touch the wind chime hanging on the branches of the round table. The sound of the bells would echo for a long time, with a tingling crisp sound, and this was what inspired me to make a wind chime clock. The wind chime clock makes a beautiful sound when you touch it, yet it can also remind you of the time that has passed.

When there is no one around or no wind, the wind chime clock will show the current time, lighting up with colored light. When the wind blows the bell to trigger the tilt sensor, the display of the wind chime clock will start from the moment that it is touched, recording and displaying the number of seconds in a minute. At this time, the lights will start to light one by one until the end of one minute. After all 20 light strips are lit, the clock wind chimes will continue to return to normal.

Materials used:

One set of Grove Starter Kit

Grove-RGB LED Ring (16-WS2813 Mini)

RTC

Wood Board

Fiber Optic

Shadowless UV Glue

Bell

String

At first, I wanted to make a box with 4 prisms, but after cutting I found that the cut is too small to hide all the sensors. However, I accidentally discovered an empty coconut shell in the office, which happen to be just the right size for the LED. Hence, I just had to design a shell to hold the LED display in place.

Refer to the BOXES.PY website to find a reference for the laser-cut boxes you want. It is super easy and convenient to use: https://www.festi.info/boxes.py/index.html?language=zh_CN

Next, I needed to program the LED display to show the current time. The programming bead will be illuminated in many colors when the time is normal. Use the tilt sensor inside the grove kit, once touched, it will trigger a minute of relaxation time where the LED lights will be lit one by one in a red firewood color.

Grind the fiber into a flat contact plane, and then cut it to a proper length. The fiber that we first bought was too thin but I later found that our company's storeroom had the correct fiber thickness required. After polishing with a sander, I used UV glue to stick the beads onto the light. The overall effect was quite good and does not affect the brightness of the light at all. However, I found that it was too long and always became loose and dropped off, so I halved the length later on.

Finally, insert the corresponding side (I inserted it in the wrong direction once and the fiber could not light up), then fix the LED display and the coconut shell with a glue gun. Using a glue gun, stick the light ring into the hole of the coconut shell, and connect the bell to near the tilt sensor.

Woohoo, done!

Project Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2iOZhX-zdNY

Huge thanks to the engineer Shiqi!