This Arduino Nano R4-controlled hourglass simulates sand with LEDs
— October 1st, 2025
Outdoors of taking part in board video games, hourglasses are nearly totally pointless lately. And but, they’re nonetheless extremely satisfying. Watching the sand fall in a gradual and constant stream is downright mesmerizing. Sadly, you in all probability can’t make your personal hourglass until you occur to be very expert at glassblowing. However you possibly can create this LED hourglass with sand physics as a substitute.
4 years in the past, Edison Science Nook posted a video a couple of digital hourglass made with LED matrix panels and that includes easy physics for the falling sand. However as cool as that was, it had a foamboard case and wasn’t optimized for others to copy. So, after receiving many requests, Edison Science Nook redesigned the hourglass with a 3D-printed enclosure to make the machine straightforward to construct.
Like the unique, this has two LED matrix panels, every with a MAX7219 driver and an 8×8 grid of LEDs (accessible in amber, blue, or inexperienced). When flipped, the “sand” pixels will “stream” down from one matrix to the opposite. An Arduino Nano R4 board does the processing for that physics simulation and it detects the flip utilizing an ADXL335 three-axis accelerometer. It could additionally detect rotation beneath 180 levels and the sand will react accordingly. Energy comes from a small lithium-ion battery, so the machine works with out a cable.
In case you’d wish to put collectively your personal LED hourglass, you are able to do so utilizing the supplied recordsdata. Edison Science Nook can also be promoting kits and totally assembled gadgets.
