05 · Mechanism Design
Escapement Pendulum Clock
Mechanical Design Project · Dec 2024 to Feb 2025
A working acrylic pendulum-and-escapement clock designed as a sculptural form. Modeled in Fusion 360 and AutoCAD, then Laser Cutting the parts and comparing two rigid-body timing models against measured behavior.
- 0.96%
- rigid-body err.
- 21%
- point-mass err.
- 5
- trials
What
- A working acrylic pendulum-and-escapement clock, designed as a sculptural form.
- Built to compare two timing models against measured escapement behavior.
How
- Designed in Fusion 360 and AutoCAD; fabricated with Laser Cutting and shop tools.
- Modeled timing two ways: point-mass and full rigid-body (moment of inertia).
- Measured the real escapement period across five trials.
Results
- Rigid-body model predicted timing within 0.96% (9.17 s vs. 9.26 s).
- Point-mass model was off by 21%, mass distribution matters.
- Traced residual error to acrylic-thickness tolerance (0.605 vs. 0.635 cm).
Tools & methods
- Fusion 360
- AutoCAD
- Laser cutting
- Dynamics modeling
Next project
Competition Robot