Make A Sundial - SCOPES Digital Fabrication

Lesson Details

Age Ranges
Standards
3.MD.A1, 4.MD.C7, 4.MD.C5, 4.MD.C5a, 4.MD.C5b, 4.MD.C6, 4.G.A1, 4.G.A2, 7.G.A2, HSG.SRT.A1a, HSG.SRT.A1b, HSG.SRT.A2, HSG.SRT.A3, HSG.SRT.C8, 1-ESS1-1, 1-ESS1-2, 5-ESS1-2, MS-ESS1-3, Fab-Design.1, Fab-Safety.2, Fab-Modeling.2, Fab-Fabrication.2
Author

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Author

CITC Fab Lab
CITC Fab Lab
Informal educator
We are Cook Inlet Tribal Council’s Fabrication Lab. We are based out of Anchorage Alaska serving Alaska Native and American Indian students based in the Anchorage school district. We teach design, building, and fabrication with a cultural emphasis. Our different… Read More

Summary

Students will use fab lab tools to create a custom sundial for their area and learn how to mark it with important yearly events.

What You'll Need

Tools:

  • Design software
  • laser cutter
  • Magnetic compass

 

Materials:

  • Sheet of wood suitable for laser cutting stencil (size is up to instructors)
  • material for sundial (can be same material used for stencil)
  • spray paint
  • wood glue 

 

Safety Tips: Laser cutting can produce fires. Please use manufacture recommended and lab tested settings for your material. Have a fire extinguisher nearby. Laser cutting generates hazardous combustion products. Please use proper ventilation.

 

Follow all safety precautions on the spray paint can when painting. Use proper ventilation and wear respiratory protection. Do not paint eyes or skin.

The Instructions

Determine Approach

Determine the difficulty level that your students need and that you have time and resources for.

This lesson can be greatly modified for your students and allotted time frame. You can design and make the stencils and/or gnomons before your students arrive to decrease the difficult and time requirements.

 

An example of a laser rastered sundial. It does have more precision than one made using spray paint and template but this took 23 minutes to raster whereas using the stencil takes several minutes and multiple stencils could be made.

What Is A Sundial?

Background information on sundials.

A sundial is a device that allows you to tell the solar time based on your location as the sun transitions through the sky. You can think of it as a shadow puppet turned into a clock. It is composed of a base with hour indicators and a gnomon which blocks the sun, casting the shadow on the base.

 

An image of a sundial being used on the Mars rover can be found here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990428.html

A video of Bill Nye explaining sundials can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWDlZ3j-m9g

A video of Bill Nye explaining why the Mars rover has a sundial can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Atrlz-cSI

Adjusting for Latitude

We have to account for the geometry of the Earth to make a sundial work properly.

The Earth is a sphere, which rotates on an axis that is tilted by 23.5 degrees from perpendicular with the plane of orbit around the sun. The “middle” of the Earth is called the equator. A location’s distance from the equation is called its latitude and it is measured in degrees.

 

This matters for our sundial because the spacing between hours on our base will need to be adjusted to account for the angle we are at. We can use a sundial calculator to determine what angles our indicators should be. A good calculator that can help us create our template can be found here: https://www.blocklayer.com/sundial.aspx

 

Use the Find Latitude button to drop a pin on your location to find your latitude for the calculator.

 

If students will be designing their own stencils have them save the base and gnomon images the calculator creates. They can import these into the design software to aide in the creation process.

 

While the calculator creates a gnomon for us, it is important to know how it does it. It is creating a right triangle that has one leg that is the length of our base and the adjacent angle matches our angle of latitude. If your students are able to calculate the second leg based on those inputs, you can have them create their own gnomon. If they don’t have the required math knowledge you can have them explore a right triangle calculator: https://www.calculator.net/right-triangle-calculator.html

Design Stencil

If you are going to speed the in class process up you will want to design a stencil that can be spray painted.

 Design for a stencil.

 Design for a freestanding gnomon. You can also just use a block attached to one or both sides of the gnomon.

Design for a laser rastered sundial. TN=True North (geographic north) and MN=Magnetic North.

 

The following instructions will help with the creation of a sundial base stencil. This can be created either partially or fully by the instructor ahead of time depending on students’ level and time allotted.

 

You can import the images created by the calculator and use them as a diagram or you can use the lengths and angles produced by the calculator depending on student ability.

 

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating a stencil designed to be used multiple times.

  • As laser cutters see hairline thickness as a cut we have to create rectangles that have our desired thickness. You want the thickness to be large enough to have paint go through but not so thick that it “bleeds”
  • You should be designing this as a one-piece stencil so you will need to ensure pieces are separated when it is cut. All pieces must be linked and the more connections each area has the stronger and longer lasting the stencil will be.
  • Font greatly matters when it comes to stencil numbers. It can be a good idea to use Roman numerals as they work well in stencils.
  • If you adjust the overall size of the base, you will need to adjust the size of the gnomon by the same ratio.

 

Cut Stencil

Now that the stencil is designed you can laser cut it. If you had students design their own sundial you would have them raster them here.

 Laser cutting the stencil.

 Laser cutting the stencil. I’ve labeled it as a stencil (top left) so that it is obvious it isn’t scrap material once it has paint all over it.



If you have not cut the stencils ahead of time, you can do so with students present. If students are present in the lab, it is a good idea to at demonstrate the cutting process even if you have pre-cut the stencils they will be using.

 

Use proper settings for your laser and your materials and ensure that proper safety procedures and discussed and utilized. Modeling good safety is one of the most important things you can teach.

Paint Sundials

If you are using stencils this is where you use them to paint your sundials.

 Follow safety procedures when using spray paint. Not much paint is needed when using the stencil.



If the material you have available for bases are dark in color it is a good idea to have students apply a light colored base coat so that there is good contrast for shadows. This greatly improves readability of the sundial, especially when it is partially cloudy.

 

Have students select a dark color paint to spray on their stencils.

 

Have students place their stencils onto their sundial bases. Using appropriate safety measures, have students spray paint using their stencils. Instruct students that getting paint through the holes in the stencils is the goal and that not moving the stencil midway through the painting is the key. Remove the stencil after painting and give time for the paint to dry.

 

Students can paint their gnomons in any color or design they wish.

Prepare Your Gnomon

If you use stencils or have students design their own dial, they will all need a gnomon.

 An example of using the block method for stabilizing the gnomon.

 An example of using cutout connections to stabilize the gnomon.

 

How you construct a base for your gnomons can vary. I recommend a simple method of attaching two small wooden blocks to the base of the gnomon to give it feet. You could also have designed other methods when you created the stencils. You could also glue the base and the gnomon together but this is not a strong joint and is easily disconnected.

 

Remember, the base of the gnomon is the leg that is the same size as your base.

Discuss the Concept of North/South

There are three types of north/south and the differences between them are important for sundials.

 The compass is aimed at magnetic north.



If you are in the northern hemisphere, you will be concerned with north and if you are in the southern hemisphere, you will be concerned with south.

 

There are three different types of north/south.

 

Geographic north/south is the point located at the Earth’s axis

 

Magnetic north/south is the point a magnetic compass will point to and is based upon multiple factors with the largest being the Earth’s magnetic field. This usually does not align with geographic north/south.

 

Map north/south is the direction of up or down on a map. As a map is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional sphere this usually does not align with geographic north/south.

 

Some maps provide indicators of how many degrees the three north/souths are off from each other.

Declination

The difference between magnetic north and geographic north is declination and we need it so that we can properly align the sundial.

 Declination in the Anchorage, AK area is about 15 degrees so I’ve turned the dial that far off of magnetic north.



As our norths are not always the same, we have to have a way to compensate for the differences. That compensation is called Declination.

 

Declination is the angle between magnetic north and true north. This angle varies depending on your location.

 

You can read more about declination here: http://www.compassdude.com/compass-declination.php

 

As we will need our sundial’s noon position to point directly at geographic north, we will need to know the declination for our area. We can find this by using a magnetic field calculator. You can look up your latitude and longitude and then use them to find declination on the following page: https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/calculators/magcalc.shtml#declination

Align the Sundial

This is where you get to use a magnetic compass and the information you have about declination to align the sundial with geographic north.

 Align the compass with your sundial and then turn it until the compass needle aligns with your declination mark.