EE-Emerge team: Damien Scholzen, Ivan Joshua Espiritu, Htet Myat, Sabrina Noorahmad-Yarzada, Waylon Pattison, and Kelvin Truong
Abstract: Time is one of the fundamental concepts of the modern day, used to quantify rates of
change and define a sequence for the existence of events. Defining and setting standards for time
has been a topic perfected over centuries with the use of timekeeping technologies. Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC) is currently the universal standard for time, used by all modern-day clock
devices. Since antiquity, the passage of time has been measured through a variety of different
methods, most of which involve physical, mechanical, and electronic elements. The project,
“Interactive Clock,” presents the display of time through two means in parallel: an infinity mirror
replicating an analog clock and a Lixie clock. The analog clock displays time by lighting LEDs
in the corresponding positions of the hours, minutes and seconds instead of using traditional
clock hands. Its front display has a semi-reflective mirror, whereas the back of the clock has a
fully reflective mirror. This causes light to reflect back and forth infinitely in the clock, allowing
the resulting light passing through the semi-reflective acrylic to show an infinite array of LEDs
cascading in the background, hence making an infinity mirror. The other clock, the Lixie, takes
inspiration from Nixie tube clocks. Nixie tube clocks use high voltage and chemical reactions to
display number-shaped filaments inside tubes using a glow discharge. The Lixie clock is similar,
except that it uses low voltages to illuminate packed acrylic panes engraved with numbers. In
conjunction with using an infinity mirror and a Lixie clock to display time, the clocks are
interactive by allowing the user to change to a corresponding time zone in the United States by
selecting an input.
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