Creating a sun clock

Abstract

An individual project in an early engineering design course is described in which students were required to learn about a simple, ancient system for telling time, namely a sun clock. The students then designed, fabricated and presented for testing both a vertically and horizontally mounted sun clock. These projects were evaluated based on the accuracy of the clocks, the quality of the artifacts, and a written report. The students were asked to participate in the grading of the artifacts. Their evaluations were shown to be very "conservative" (everyone was given A's and B's.) in spite of explicit instructions to the contrary, leading to the suggestion that engineering students may lack the skills to make effective, qualitative judgments and may benefit from an exposure to design in other, more qualitative disciplines like interior design, industrial design, and/or architecture