paper craft sundial

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http://www.instructables.com/id/15-minute-paper-craft-sundial/

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15-minute paper-craft sundialby arpruss on August 24, 2011

Table of Contents

15-minute paper-craft sundial .....................................................................................................

Intro: 15-minute paper-craft sundial .............................................................................................

Step 1: Enter the data .......................................................................................................

Step 2: Cut out the dial ......................................................................................................

Step 3: Score the gnomon ....................................................................................................

Step 4: Fold and glue the gnomon ..............................................................................................

Step 5: Attach and adjust gnomon ..............................................................................................

Step 6: Aligning the dial ......................................................................................................

Step 7: Reading the sundial ...................................................................................................

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http://www.instructables.com/member/arpruss/?utm_source=pdf&utm_campaign=titlehttp://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-workshop/http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-technology/http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-play/http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-outside/http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-living/http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-id/category-food/


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Intro: 15-minute paper-craft sundialThis is a 15-minute paper sundial in two senses: it takes 15-minutes to make and is labeled to the nearest 15-minutes. It is made of paper, but I designed the gnomohave a three-dimensional base for greater stability, tapering to a thin top for better accuracy around noon.

The hard work was my doing the trigonometry for the three-dimensional paper-craft gnomon and writing a perl script that generates a pdf file for a particular location. with the script written, you should be able to print out a sundial from the generator on my websiteand construct it in fifteen minutes.

Ingredients and tools:

Two sheets of paper, ideally cardstock or some other heavy stock.ScissorsPaper glue (I use Aleene's)PrinterRuler

Something pointy, e.g., a pen with no ink or a small screwdriverComputer with internet access, PDF viewer, and printer

The script I used was based loosely on the one in my large patio/driveway analemmatic sundial Instructable. This is a much simpler project. The last one I assembletook 12 minutes once I had the design printed out and all the tools in place, and that's counting periodic stops to take photographs.

You can load the PDF file into a vector drawing application like Inkscape and make it fancier. Just make sure that if you resize the dial, you resize the gnomon (thepointer) in the same proportions. The script is open source so you can modify it as you see fit.

You can presumably trace the printout on copper sheets to make a fancier dial and gnomon. I'd love to see it.

This would make a good classroom project at various levels, depending on how deep you get into explaining how it works.

Note:The script currently works for latitudes between 24 degrees (north or south) and 65 degrees (north or south). (That covers all of the contiguous 48 states in theU.S., much of the populous parts of Canada and Europe, all of South Africa, much of India, etc.) The limitations are due to the way the gnomon is designed to work bwhen shadows are short and when they are long, and its having a wider base.

Image Notes1. Dial shows approximately 6:30 pm. Time stamp on photo is 6:32 pm.

Step 1:Enter the dataYou will need the following information:

your zip code (if you're in the US) or latitude/longitude (this site should help)your timezonewhether your location has daylight savings time (time change between winter and summer time).

Now go to my script's website http://analemmatic.sf.net/cgi-bin/papercraft.pl. Enter the above information. If you have daylight savings in your location, you will need

decide if you want your dial to show winter or summer time. You can leave the colors as-is for a black-and-white sundial, or you can enter HTML color codes tocustomize. I customized by setting the dial and hour backgrounds to C6DEFF (a l ight blue), the gnomon to2B60DE (a royal blue) and the hour text to 000000 (black)You can also choose whether you want Arabic or Roman numerals and whether you want 4 shown as "IIII" or as "IV".

Print both pages of the PDF file, ideally on heavy paper, e.g., card stock.
http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htmhttp://www.hmssurprise.org/Resources/whereami.htmlhttp://www.hmssurprise.org/Resources/whereami.htmlhttp://www.instructables.com/id/Large-driveway-sidewalk-or-garden-sundial/http://get.adobe.com/reader/http://analemmatic.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/papercraft.pl


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Image Notes1. No, I didn't look anything up in Lang's Algebra. I just put it under the gnomonsheet when scoring it.

Step 2:Cut out the dialCut out the dial circle. If you like, you can glue it on a harder backing.

Step 3:Score the gnomonThe gnomon is the pointer that casts the shadow.

The gnomon is on the second page of the pdf file and has five dashed/dotted lines (depending on your color choices, they may be hard to see; you might want to put ablack and white version on screen for references). The lines that have only dashes (_ _ _ _ _ _ _) are valley folds--you will fold so that the dashed line is at the bottomthe crease. The lines that have dashes and dots (_ . _ . _ . _ .), i.e., the central line and the lines for the outside flaps, are mountain folds--you will fold so that the dasand dotted line is at the top of the crease.

Before folding, however, you need to score all the fold lines to make an accurate gnomon. To do that, use a ruler and draw over them with a pointy object, like a smalsharp screwdriver. Try to remember which lines are mountain and which are valley folds or have the PDF file on your computer screen for reference, since the scoringmay make it hard to see the dots and dashes.

After scoring, cut out the gnomon's outer edges. (I find it easier to score before cutting.)


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Step 4:Fold and glue the gnomonMake all the creases in this step nice and sharp. It will be difficult to keep them sharp as you reach the end where they come together. Using a ruler may be helpful.

Start by folding the gnomon in half along the central mountain-fold line, and pressing the halves together (photo 1). Make the halves line up nicely.

Then fold back (in the opposite direction to the first fold) along the next two lines, which are valley-fold (photo 2).

Next, carefully glue together the two triangles on either side of the central mountain-fold line, up to the valley-folds you just did (photo 3). Don't use too much glue--yowant a very flat and straight joint. Wait for the glue to set a bit before the next step. If you want the gnomon to be stronger, you can embed a wire extracted from a witie along the crease.

Finally, you have two small flaps which will be used to glue the gnomon to the triangular (or, more precisely, diamond-shaped) area on the dial. They are attached witmountain folds--crease them so they join up but do not overlap (photo 4).


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Image Notes1. This needs to be glued to form a sharp and straight pointer.

Image Notes1. Flaps join up but do not overlap

Step 5:Attach and adjust gnomonGo back to the gnomon andput glue all over the two small triangular flaps on the bottom of the gnomon, and glue them down into their positions on the dial. Make suthe flaps don't overlap, but join evenly. Try to align them as carefully and as symmetrically as you can with the triangles for them on the dial, and glue the flaps downneatly along the creases..

Optionally, for more precise alignment, you can first cut out the "Gnomon sizer" triangle. Then while the glue on the gnomon flaps is still tacky, play with adjusting theexact gnomon height (it goes up if you move the flaps slightly together and down i f you move them slightly apart). The gnomon height should be the same as the heigof the "Gnomon sizer" triangle (with the word "Gnomon sizer" being horizontal), and the distance from the center of the dial to where the tip of the gnomon overhangsshould be the same as the length of the sizer.

Image Notes1. Gnomon sizer put against the gnomon with the glue still tacky.

Step 6:Aligning the dialTo use the dial, you need to place it on a level spot (e.g., a sunlit table) andalign the "N" arrow with geographic or true north (in the northern hemisphere, the gnomonalso point north; in the southern hemisphere, it will point south). Unfortunately, geographic or true north is not the same as the magnetic north shown by a magneticcompass.

The simplest way to align is simply to look at a watch and turn the dial until the shadow shows the correct time. (You may also want to do an Equation of Timeadjustment when reading the time shown on the dial--see the next step. Also, make sure you make a daylight savings adjustment if the dial is not printed for the curreseason's time.) There are other methods. You can use a magnetic compass and correct for magnetic declination, as described in my other sundial Instructable. Or ycan wait for night and align with the north star. I just used the fact that I already had one large aligned sundial.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Large-driveway-sidewalk-or-garden-sundial/step2/Draw-the-axes/


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Step 7:Reading the sundialYou read the sundial by looking where the edge of the shadow is, or more precisely where the edge of the shadow further from the gnomon. Except near solar noon(which may be more like 1 pm in the summer if you have daylight savings), that shadow line should be a straight line from the center of the dial out. Near solar noon,because of the wider base of the gnomon, there will be a bend in the shadow line--use the outermost portion of the shadow line.

For greater precision, you can add the number of minutes indicated in the correction table for a date close to your current date. This is an Equation of Time correctionthat every sundial needs to make. If you aligned and leveled the dial well (mine wasn't that well aligned--the excellent match with time in photo 1 was probably a fluke

photo 2, I had the dial--actually a different copy of the dial--in a slightly different location).

And of course you may need to add or subtract an hour to correct for Daylight Savings--if you used the right Daylight Savings option when entering data into the scriptthere will be a reminder printed on the dial--since the earth doesn't know about Daylight Savings and doesn't change its rotation to suit.

Note that the script that produced the dial adjusts for where your longitude lies within a time-zone--it shows your time-zone time, not local solar time. (For instance, sonoon is at about 12:30 pm winter time and 1:30 pm summer time at my location.)

Finally, you can always use the sundial in reverse, as a solar compass. Just align it so it's level and shows the correct time, and it'll point you north or south. Howevebe careful, since the sundial is set for your particular latitude and longitude.

Image Notes

1. Dial shows about 6:30 pm. The time stamp on the photo shows 6:32 pm.There is about a 2-3 minute equation of time correction.2. Equation of time correction3. Time change reminder

Image Notes

1. Time stamp on photo is 4:53 pm. The dial is showing just before 4:45, butthere is a two-three minute equation of time correction to be added to that.2. Sharp tip of gnomon. Could do with a bit of straightening.
http://www.sundials.co.uk/equation.htm


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