This Maker Built a Countdown Timer for His 100th Birthday—37 Years Away

Most adults don’t tend to pay their birthdays much attention, and you probably only have a vague awareness of how far away yours is until you’re within a month of it happening. But some birthdays stand out: 18, 21, 30, 40, 50, and the big 100. Whether you’re anticipating those milestones eagerly or with horror and trepidation, there is no denying that they’re important. To make sure he doesn’t forget his 100th birthday, Clive Maxfield built a beautiful countdown timer more than 37 years in advance.

Maxfield won’t reach his birth’s centennial celebration until May 29th of 2057, but he’s already counting down the seconds—literally. To be fair, this doesn’t just count down to Maxfield’s 100th birthday; it also displays the current time in different formats like any other clock would, and can count down to various other dates that have been programmed in. All of that is controlled by a Teensy 3.6 board with an Arm Cortex-M4 processor, which is paired with a ChronoDot RTC from Adafruit.

The aesthetics of this project are what makes it particularly impressive. The wood base was built by hand and stained a nice walnut color. Brass accents, including engraved tags, give the wood base some extra flair. Each of the 12 digits of the countdown timer is a “Lixie.” Lixies have the appearance of classic Nixie tubes, but without all of the hassle. They’re made up of multiple panes of transparent acrylic—one for each digit—that are edge-lit with RGB LEDs. By illuminating the correct acrylic pane, a specific digit will become visible. The result is an attractive and functional clock that also counts down the seconds to that all-important 100th birthday.