I designed this special paper clock for children who need to get the knowledge of time and recognize the time on clock. I hope to help children learn to recognize the time, and help those people who need it as well.

You can do it! Good luck!

Step 1: Tools and Materials List

The tools and materials used in this paper clock are common in our life, and can be used by anyone even children. So don’t worry about those items hurting children.

A piece of cloth
Two LED lights
A blue Cardboard and a green cardboard
Foil
Multiple function pen Scissors
Tape
Pins
Thread
Circuit playground which is $24.95 https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333

Step 2: Instructions

Draw a circle on the paper with a round thing(like a large bowl). Cut the circle that you’ve drawn.

Overlapping the circle and the cloth (you can find any color you like), and use scissors to cut the cloth into a circle to use as the dial.

Mark the numbers on the dial, keep the same distance between each number. First, mark hours 12 at the top of clock, then mark 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Mark minutes 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 above hours.

Cut the two pieces of cardboard according to the shape of the pointer. We need to make the size of blue cardboard shorter than the green cardboard. The blue one is used as the hour hand and green one is used as the minute hand of the clock.

After that, overlap the hour and minute hands together and use pins to nail them together.

Pin the hour hand and minute hand together to the center of the dial.

Draw some patterns on the circular dial plate. These patterns can be selected according to the graphics or cartoons that you or your children like. I drew some stars and a Doraemon cartoon character on it.

Connect two LED lights with the circuit playground. The positive of one of the LED lights is connected to A1 in the circuit playground, and the negative is connected to GND in the circuit playground. The positive of another LED light is connected to A5 in the circuit playground, and the negative is connected to GND in the circuit playground. The circuitry blueprints is below. When connecting, put the threads on the back of clock.

Use thread connect A3 in the circuit playground to the foil close to the 6 on the clock dial. Then connect the foil close to 6 to each foil close to 7, and the connect the foil close to 7 with the foil close to 8, and by parity of reasoning，connect the foil close to 8 with the foil close to 9, ...10, and 11.

Then use thread connect A7 in the circuit playground to the foil close to 12, and use thread to connect the foil close to 12 with the foil close to 1, and connect the foil close to 1 with 2, by parity of reasoning, connect the foil close to 2 with the foil close to 3,… 4, and 5. The circuitry blueprints is below. When connecting, put the threads on the back of clock.

Stick cardboard on the back of clock.

Step 3: Circuitry Blueprints

Step 4: Step-by-Step Pictures

Step 5: Code

Step 6: Tips & Ideas

Because the main goal of paper clock is to enable children to recognize the time on clock and get the knowledge of time, the most important thing is to make different paper clocks for different children. For boys, you can choose any color of cloth that boys like, such as blue cloth, cartoon patterns that boys like, spider-man and so on. If the paper clock you designed for girls, you can choose pink cloth, hello kitty, bear and other cartoon patterns that girls like.

The size of the dial can be made according to children of different ages. It can be made bigger if the paper clock used by older children like 5-6 years old. On the contrary, the size of dial can be made smaller if the children with younger children under age 5.

The pointer can also be selected from different colors of the cardboard. This color can be selected according to your own preference, or your user's preference.

You can choose different sounds such as ba ding, wawawawaa, jump up, jump down when you press the foils. Before selecting the sound, you can open the madecode.adafruit.com, select music section, then select the first one play sound to choose any sounds that you like. Play different sounds to children and let the them choose their favorite sounds as the sound when press foils.

Put the thread behind the paper clock when you sewing for a good aesthetic.

Step 7: Common Problems and Workarounds

There are several problems need to be pay attention when designing code in madecode.adafruit.com. In order to make both LED lights work, you need to change the low from the back of the digital write pin to high so that the light can be lit. If it is low as original situation, the LED light will not light.

If you want to have sound as soon as when children press the foil, put the play sound in music section in the code in front of show animation xx for xx ms. In this way, the sound will not be delayed when the children press the foil.

When connecting each foil, pay attention to use thread to connect one foil to another. All of the foils cannot be connected with a thread. After sewing one foil and another foil, use another thread to sew this foil and another foil. For instance, after using one thread to sew the foil close to 12 o'clock and the foil close to 1 o'clock, then use another thread to sew the foil close to 1 o'clock and the foil close to 2 o'clock.

After sewing, cut off the head of each thread if there is a long thread remain to prevent the two threads from crossing together. If the two threads cross together, there may be no sound when pressing the foil, or the LED lights not works. And make sure tight stitches to guarantee function works.

You may want to put the thread on the front of the paper clock for convenience. However, if you put thread on the front of the clock, it will affect the overall artistic and looks messy, and will also make children lose interest in using this paper clock. Therefore, be sure to put the thread on the back of paper clock when sewing.

Step 8: Conclusion

This design is a paper clock. Like normal clocks, there are dials, hour and minute hands. But what can be different is that there are two LED lights on this project that can be lit, and there are 12 tin foils around 12 hours, which will have sound when the tin foil is pressed.

Hope you can do it because it’s really helpful to children to recognize the time!