This Little Robot Draws and Erases the Time Minute by Minute

You’ve probably seen the original Plotclock by joo, or any number of iterations by other makers. This style of clock uses a pair of servo motors and a system of linkages to move a marker in a Cartesian plane on a writing surface, along with a third servo to lift it up as needed. This enables it to spell out the time once per minute, also using its movement abilities to pull an eraser into action.

As shown in the video below, YouTuber “Projects with Red” decided to take this the next level, adding an enclosure and three rotary encoders. This allows the device to not only act as an auto-clock, but to be operated in manual mode. Two of the encoders are employed to move the marker in the X/Y plane via the horizontal servos, and the third encoder used to lift the marker as needed. So it’s not just a clock, but a sort of knob-based rotary tool, in the same vein as an Etch A Sketch.

Processing for the unit is provided via an ESP32 microcontroller, while a DS3231 is used to keep accurate time. Code and STLS are found on GitHub if you want to create your own. Given the ESP32’s WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities, one could see this project taken further with a few software upgrades. Perhaps it could be set up to display info from the Internet or even plot out images on command.

H/t: Reddit