High Level Design

Sketch of the components of the "Destruction of Time". The stand will be welded from 1/4" square steel tubing in a couple of parts for ease of transportation and swift assembly.


How the frame/stand will look. Will take some experimentation to determine the appropriate height/angle for the printer. Also thinking about dropping the Ubuntu/laptop in favor of a Pogo-plug. Evan also wants the thing to light up like a Christmas tree each time it's activated. he's already working on the code to make that happen as well as the timing mechanism and relay to power on/off the shredder.

The Awesomeness Starts

last year's Maker Faire was a hoot - but this year we need to go bigger, louder, more steel and more destruction. So, I introduce to the "The Destruction of Time".

A printer sits on a welded steel frame atop a large paper shredder. Every minute the printer comes to life, prints the time in large numbers on a sheet of paper that drops into an acrylic tray. There it sits for exactly one minute, whereafter the shredder comes to life, seizes the paper and shreds it while, at the same time, the printer is printing out the next minute. And so on.

The shredder timer and on/off mechanism is driven by a standalone Arduino board and relay; the printer is driven from a Ubuntu-based laptop. All paper is recycled. The frame is welded cold-rolled steel. The shredded paper is recycled.