The ICON

gubrotat, member

15 users recommend

Close up of the top showing the aluminum keyboard / mouse tray that I fabricated to ease the occaisional moving of large amounts of photos and music files.

The PC is at the top, behind the touchscreen with the satellite speakers and power supply. The base houses the light, subwoofer, and built-in surge protector.

The home screen showing the clock and various buttons that lead you to other pages within the interactive software. This screen can look like anything the end user desires or that I can dream up.

The music page, browse through all you music cover art and play it through the Bose sound system with one tap on the screen.

The wireless internet connection makes local and international weather available with one tap of the screen.

Close up of the top showing the aluminum keyboard / mouse tray that I fabricated to ease the occaisional moving of large amounts of photos and music files.

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The ICON was borne out of a desire to bring multimedia to the living room / board room in an attractive, modern, yet familiar package. All of the traditional mechanics have been replaced by a PC and touchscreen. The programmed hands rotate like any clock but, the similarity ends there. With this clock you can view family photos / videos, check the weather, and even listen to your favorite music on the Bose sound system which includes a subwoofer in the base. The home screen can be customized to look like anything the user desires and there is no limit to the amount of data that can be stored on board. The knob on the front is the master volume, the slot next to it is where CD's are inserted, and the witchball lights up via a hidden touch switch. Other than that the pendulum is largely symbolic, it does not move. Materials are Hard Maple and American Cherry, both finished with 20 coats of custom tinted shellac and hand polished with 3M rubbing compound and Zymol automotive polish. The metal is natural aluminum with a clear coat and the glass is 3/8" clear plate with my logo etched into the face. The design is intentionally simple to offset the complexity of the piece. The most challenging part of the build was the 6' long, full length miters in the supports and the radiused and mitered Cherry on top of the base. Thanks for viewing my work! SS

posted in: Reader's Gallery, modern, cherry, maple, clock

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Comments (3)

gubrotat writes: Thanks for the comments guys. Yes, everything you see was developed by me. I actually did contract with a software company in Michigan for the base software that runs in the background but, I did all the graphics and programming to tie it all together. The clock face was "built" in Bryce 6 (3D terrain mapping software) and then fine tuned in Photoshop CS3. The hands were done in the same manner and made functional with Basic programming language. Probably sounds kind of complicated but, it's not as bad as you might think. The end result is easy enough to use that my kids love it and use it all the time. Thanks!
Posted: 9:59 am on November 5th

Anatole writes: Very cool. Great to see a new take on an old form. Did you develop the clock face?
Posted: 9:06 am on November 4th

MBerger writes: Woodworking and technology, my two favorite things :) Did you know that Steve Jobs made the first Macintosh computer from Rosewood! You might be on to something.
Posted: 3:54 pm on November 3rd

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