DIY Rolling Eyes Clock: Make a Quirky Timepiece in an Afternoon

DIY Rolling Eyes Clock: Make a Quirky Timepiece in an AfternoonA Rolling Eyes Clock is a fun, low-cost project that transforms a simple wall or desk clock into a playful character with moving “eyeballs” that track the clock hands. It’s a great weekend craft for beginners and a delightful homemade gift. This guide walks you through materials, step-by-step instructions, design options, troubleshooting, and finishing touches so you can build a working, whimsical clock in an afternoon.

Why build a Rolling Eyes Clock?

• Personality: It turns a functional object into a conversational piece.
• Simple mechanics: The project uses straightforward parts — an inexpensive clock movement, small motors or linkages, and lightweight “eyes.”
• Customizable: Choose sizes, materials, and facial expressions to match your style.
• Educational: Great for learning basic mechanics, simple electronics, and hands-on problem solving.

Materials and tools

Essential materials:

• A basic quartz clock movement with hour and minute hands (and preferably a second hand) — salvaged from a cheap wall clock or bought online.
• Two lightweight eyeballs (ping-pong balls, wooden beads, foam spheres, or 3D-printed spheres).
• Two small servo motors (micro servos like SG90 work well) or a small pair of geared DC motors with simple linkages.
• Mounting board or clock face (cardboard, plywood, acrylic, or an existing clock face).
• Control electronics: microcontroller (optional) — e.g., Arduino Nano or an inexpensive servo controller, plus a power source (battery pack or USB power bank). If using a mechanical linkage driven by the clock movement, you may not need electronics.
• Wire, soldering iron (if using electronics), hot glue, double-sided tape, small screws, and mounting brackets.
• Craft supplies for decoration: paint, markers, felt, fabric, googly eyes, etc.

Tools:

• Hobby knife, drill (for mounting holes), screwdrivers, pliers, ruler, hot-glue gun, sandpaper.

Two main approaches

There are two common ways to make the eyes follow the clock hands:

1. Mechanical linkage driven by the clock movement — simplest if you want everything to run off one clock motor.
2. Electronic servos controlled by a microcontroller reading the clock hands or time — more flexible and precise.

I’ll outline both. Choose the approach that fits your skill set and desired complexity.

Approach A — Mechanical linkage (no microcontroller)

Overview: Convert the rotational motion of the minute (or hour) hand into lateral motion for the eye pupils using simple linkages or a cam.

Steps:

1. Prepare the clock face: Remove the clock hands and movement from its case. Keep the minute (or second) hand shaft accessible.
2. Build eye mounts: Mount two eye spheres on short shafts so they can pivot left-right. Use small diameter dowels or steel rods as eyestalk axles. Drill two holes in the clock face where eyes will sit, sized for the axle. Secure bearings or bushings (small rubber grommets or smooth-fitting holes) so the eyes rotate freely.
3. Create the linkage or cam: Attach an eccentric cam or small off-center wheel to the clock’s minute-hand shaft (or second-hand shaft for faster motion). As the cam rotates, it pushes a small rod back and forth. Use a bellcrank (L-shaped lever) for each eye: the cam pushes a central pushrod that connects to the two bellcranks, converting the linear motion into opposing rotations for the two eyes (so they look in the same direction).
4. Tune travel: File or adjust the cam and lever lengths so the pupils move a few millimeters — enough to be expressive but not so much they fall out of frame. Stop screws or glue can limit rotation range.
5. Reassemble: Mount the movement back into the clock face, ensure the linkages clear the hands, and reattach the decorative hands if desired (you can leave hands off for a fully-faced character). Power it up and watch the eyes slowly drift as the minute hand turns (or quickly if driven by the second shaft).

Pros: simple electronics (none), runs directly off the clock motor. Cons: limited motion patterns and slower movement if driven by minute/hour shafts.

Approach B — Servo-controlled eyes (recommended for expressive motion)

Overview: Use two micro servos to rotate the pupil assemblies. A small microcontroller reads time (from the clock movement or via an RTC module) and sets servo positions to match hand angles or produce independent expressions.

Steps:

1. Prepare the clock mechanism: You can use the original quartz movement purely for the clock hands and separately control the eyes with servos. Alternatively, the microcontroller can keep time with a real-time clock (RTC) module and drive the clock hands with a stepper motor, but that’s more advanced. For simplicity, keep the quartz movement for visible hands, and power servos independently.
2. Mount the servos: Place two SG90-size servos behind each eyeball location. Attach a horn to each servo and connect it to the eye axle (dowel/shaft) so servo rotation turns the eye. Ensure the servo can rotate the eye a few degrees left and right without binding.
3. Build eye assemblies: Use ping-pong balls or 3D-printed eyeballs with a flat area or socket to glue onto the servo-driven shaft. Paint black pupils on the balls, or mount small black discs as pupils on the front of each ball. Ensure contrast so the movement reads from a distance.
4. Electronics and code: Use an Arduino Nano or similar. Connect the two servos to PWM pins, power them from a 5V supply (separate from the Arduino if needed). If you want eyes to track the clock hands exactly, add small optical encoders to the clock hands or compute angles from the time provided by the quartz movement (harder). Simpler: read time from an RTC module (DS3231) and convert hour/minute/second into pupil positions via mapping functions. Example behavior:
   • Map minute hand angle to horizontal pupil position.
   • Add small easing and jitter for a natural look.
   • Blink by briefly rotating the pupils or dropping a small eyelid servo/slider.
5. Write code: A short Arduino sketch will read the RTC and update servo positions every 100–500 ms. Include smoothing to avoid abrupt jumps. Example pseudocode:

   
   read time from RTC compute targetAngle = map(minuteAngle, min, max, leftLimit, rightLimit) servoLeft.write(center + targetAngle + offsetLeft) servoRight.write(center + targetAngle + offsetRight) delay(100) 

6. Power and mount: Hide wiring behind the clock face. Use foam or felt to insulate and cover gaps. Reattach the clock hands and test.

Pros: expressive and programmable; can blink, look around, follow seconds or minutes. Cons: needs simple electronics and coding.

Design tips & variations

• Eye materials: ping-pong balls are cheap and lightweight; wooden beads look more polished; 3D-printed spheres let you design sockets for shafts and eyelids.
• Pupils: paint them, use black adhesive vinyl dots, or glue small googly-eye inserts. For depth, recess pupils into cups.
• Eyelids: add sliding felt eyelids or a small servo to blink for personality.
• Mounting face: Make a themed face (cat, robot, monster) using paint or layered acrylic. Place eyes asymmetrically for quirky character.
• Motion behavior: map seconds for playful rapid movement, minutes for subtle drifting, hours for lazy glances. Combine so eyes sweep quickly at 60s intervals then slowly track minutes.
• Power: a USB power bank hidden behind the clock is an easy portable solution for servo-powered builds.

Troubleshooting

• Eyes jitter or stutter: increase smoothing in code or add damping in the linkage. Ensure servos get stable power; use decoupling capacitors if needed.
• Movement range too large or small: adjust horn length or change mapping range in software. Mechanical stops can prevent over-rotation.
• Clock hands and linkages collide: test with hands removed first; vary linkage heights and recess the mechanism if necessary.
• Noisy servos: use slower easing curves and mount servos on foam to reduce resonance.

Example parts list (budget build)

• Inexpensive wall clock movement — $5–10
• 2x SG90 micro servos — $6–10 total
• Arduino Nano or Pro Mini clone — $3–8
• DS3231 RTC module — $2–5 (optional)
• Ping-pong balls (2) — $1–3
• Small dowels, screws, hot glue — \(5 Total: ~\)25–40 depending on parts and tools you already have.

Final touches and presentation

• Add a personality card explaining the clock’s behavior (e.g., “Blinking every 10 minutes, follows the minute hand”).
• Gift-wrap in a box with a small battery pack included.
• Place the clock on a shelf or mount it where people can see the eyes at about eye level for maximum effect.

This project scales from very simple mechanical constructions to more advanced servo-and-microcontroller implementations. Pick the approach that fits your tools and time — you can complete a basic version in an afternoon and refine it later. Enjoy building a timepiece that literally watches the hours go by.