Video: This Japanese writing clock is already a timeless classic

Evan Gower February 27, 2016

Sometimes you’ve just got to step back in adoration.

This clock is already a timeless classic, yet is new to the scene. It’s something that you might imagine to be in a Harry Potter movie, or in the studio of a great Italian inventor.

It’s the work of a student called Kango Suzuki (like the car, yes). The 22-year-old, who’s studying at Tohoku University of Art and Design in Japan, spent six months crafting the piece.

It’s a fine feat of engineering and craftsmanship. There are 407 hand-carved pieces to the clock, which move automatically and write the time on a small panel in the centre of the construction.

Named ‘Plock,’ the wooden pieces rely on four, suspended weights to move, and the 24-hour format time is displayed on a magnetic drawing board. It moves to the minute, and each time the previous time is wiped clear, the new one added.

A YouTube explanation reads:

The student Suzuki Kango’s astounding hand-carved wooden automaton clock. With over 400 wooden moving parts, Suzuki’s senior thesis exhibition project uses four magnetic stylus pens on a magnetic drawing board to mechanically write the full time every minute in 24-hour format – and it is a real masterpice.

Suzuki also tweeted a clip of his masterpiece. At the time of writing, it had been retweeted nearly 200,000 times.

Here it is in action in a slightly longer sequence. Quite mesmerising!