Clock Project

This project in MECH 200B was an introduction to many manufacturing methods that were new to me, most notably the lathe. In this project, I made a clock with an aluminum base that was milled with holes for two pencil holders and a slot for the face. The pencil holders were made with a lathe out of brass and steel. I used a laser cutter to engrave a design I made for the clock face.

After the clock was built I calculated the costs for building the clock, including the wage for a machinist multiplied by the time it took me to make it. I also gave input on how our process could have been improved to speed up the process and make it cheaper, eventually to be scaled up for mass production.

Takeaways and Advice

This can be quite a fun project if you do most of it early enough. I would recommend to future students that you finish the lathe parts within the first 2 weeks of learning how to use the lathe. Despite the many hours I spent in the EMEC it was still hard to get time on a lathe in the last month of the project. Also find something fun to do with the clock face to express your creativity, as good as this project is for teaching all the principles we are learning there is very little room for creativity or making your project unique so have some fun with what you can modify.