As you might expect from the former leader of one of the largest CAD companies in the world, Carl Bass, Autodesk CEO emeritus, loves both designing things and making them.
Traditionally, Bass would design and manufacture unique holiday gifts and present them to his executives each year, and last Christmas was no different. Teaming up with Autodesk designers Arthur Harsuvanakit and Lucas Prokopiak, and working with product design agency LUNAR Design, he set out to create an unusual clock, dubbed the “Time Machine”, in Autodesk’s Fusion 360 software.
So, what’s so special about this clock? Ordinary clocks are fine, right? If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. Prokopiak disagrees: clocks are boring.
“Together we set out to reconsider the classic, yet typically mundane clock design,” said Prokopiak. “From guiding our initial sketches all the way through manufacturing, Fusion 360 was not just the only software package we used for the entire project, but more like the sixth member of our team.”
The clocks took several months to design, simulate, redesign and reiterate before the limited production run of 25 clocks materialized. And once they had been manufactured, they not only worked beautifully but managed to bag two awards from the Spark International Design Competition.
This mechanism in the clock drives twelve wings as they each flip over 180 degrees to denote five minute periods.
To display the hour, a ring of lights in the center light up successively as the hours pass by. After a 12-hour period, the center section is completely illuminated.
The clock’s were fabricated with a number of different materials and processes. Components were 3D printed in plastics, CNC cut from aluminum, and waterjetting was even used to cut the limestone base. The team also made good use of Fusion 360 for creating the toolpaths for the cutting processes.
“Each of these processes was directly driven by Fusion 360’s integrated manufacturing capabilities and were carried out in Autodesk’s Pier 9 Workshop,” Prokopiak said. “The ability to edit parts and automatically update toolpaths was a big time-saver for us, and once again we came away very impressed by the CAM workspace”.
After the components were manufactured, the clocks were hand-assembled, then distributed to the presumably chuffed recipients. (I would be chuffed, anyway. It beats socks.)
So, there you have it. As well as creating a fancy, award-winning clock, Autodesk is keen to showcase Fusion 360 as a fully-fledged product design suite, rather than as a mere CAD modelling package.
I’ve never used the package before, (I’m a long-term SOLIDWORKS user) but the rendering and simulation aspects of Fusion 360 are tempting me to maybe switch sides. *cough* Free evaluation copy please, Autodesk *cough*.