A Multi-Dial Cut-Out by Tony Moss
This attractive and educational cut-out dial visually clarifies the relationship between the three most common sundial types: the horizontal dial, the vertical dial and the polar equatorial dial.
This multi-dial was designed by Tony Moss, the eminent designer of many beautiful public dials and member of both the British and American societies. The assembly is made from four print-out sheets, glued to cereal box cardboard, then glued together along lines to form the sundials.
Lightweight carboard from an office supply store or the cardboard returned by laudries in folded shirts makes a sturdy multi-dial. Score the folds lightly and cut with scissors or exacto-knife.
This unique instrument introduces you to the shadow relationships of these fundamental types of sundials. A challenging but rewarding design. The design also includes the "Equation of Time" graph that allows you to change sundial local time into your clock time.
Dial layout and detailed instructions are provided for three latitude zones: 30-40°, 40-50°, and 50-60° covering areas from the southern USA to Alaska, Canada, UK, Europe, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan.
- Details
- Hits: 15048
Astronomy Teaching Tools - Sundials, Globes, Astrolabes and More
John Krieger, a former science teacher, is a strong supporter of STEM in the classroom and science in the real world. Bollards at Laguna Nigel in southern California might offer the opportunity to teach a bit of astronomy.
John says, "I don’t mean to imply that every concrete curb stop should be turned into an astronomical instrument. But why can’t we have more of these things around us? The ‘globe sundial’ is not an original idea of mine. People have actually made them, but they are depressingly rare....Sometimes someone does go to the trouble of making a beautiful, scientifically literate public display, and places it in full view of the everyday public, and even provides instructions..." 
Many of these public displays are sundials and during John's career, he developed aids to teach astronomy to schoolchildren.
At his website, he makes an array of paper sundials, globes, astrolabes and quadrants available in PDF form for printing and easy constructing to make an accurate sundial or globe with explanation of how it works. "Most of them are printable PDF files that you can download and give to kids to label, cut out, and use as the basis of some activity... Officially, I am making all of these works available under a Creative Commons — Attribution License, which means you may do anything you like with them, as long as you give me credit as the creator."
And don't worry about adjusting for latitude. His paper instruments are available for download at every 10 degrees of latitude from 60 deg south to 60 deg north, which for example would be appropriate for use in Reykjavik, Iceland. In North America, 20 degrees covers lower Florida, 30 degrees is suitable for southern California, 40 degrees works for the big US east coast cities, and 50 degrees is appropriate for Calgary in the heart of Alberta.
Downloads available at: https://www.astronomyforthinkers.com/downloads/
For the Hemispherical Dial, go to: https://www.instructables.com/A-Hemispherical-Paper-Sundial/
- Details
- Hits: 10442
Connetquot Students Use Sundials to Tell Time
Second-grade students at Connetquot Elementary School in Islip, New York, created sundials using paper plates and pencils. The pencil gnomons were set mostly vertical by the students and then they traced the resulting shadows at three times during the day. This helped teachers Leslie Davis and Melissa Love demonstrate the sun’s apparent movement in the sky and talk about the earth's rotation as the cause. "The students really had fun," said Love, "and they were able to recognize that a sundial is a tool that can be used to measure time."
- Details
- Hits: 14386
Equatorial Sundial
This Sundials for Starters appeared in The Compendium in June, 2007
by Robert L. Kellogg, Ph.D.
In this day and age of computers, I began musing what is one the least complicated sundial to build. In the last Compendium I showed the classical method of graphically constructing a horizontal dial, and the introductory NASS Sundial CD discs contain power point presentations for creating a variety of sundials. Here is a simple equatorial dial that I’ve used in sundial demonstrations. It requires several pieces of cardboard and a coffee stirrer.
- Details
- Hits: 30214
LEGO Sundial
What can 62 LEGO bricks build? An equatorial sundial. A recent dial building project demonstrates a very nice looking sundial dial built from regular LEGO elements. The design is a classic equatorial sundial using a central north-pointing rod gnomon with shadow cast only hourly segments tilted at 15 degree increments. The base swivels such that it can be adjusted for any latitude.
The building blocks use 1xN plates placed side by side on the underside of a 1x4x5 arch, creating the hourly progression of 15 degree tilted tiles. In the design shown, two blue plates in the center bracket the noon mark. Outer blue plates indicate 6am and 6pm. All you need to do is paste on the hour numerals.
It appears that a number of different sundials can be created using LEGO tiles. A comment on the shown design is that "after some experimenting, I think the base needs to be extended by two stud lengths. The center of gravity shifts a little too far when the dial is adjusted for lower latitudes. It still stands, but is tippy."
In fact, there is a whole world of LEGO sundials. Check out http://62bricks.com/category/sundials where you'll find more equatorial sundials, a vertical east-west sundial, and a polar dial. It's amazing what you can do with LEGOS
- Details
- Hits: 6682
NASS Simple Horizontal Sundial
The North American Sundial Society is developing sundial material for the earth-science curriculum, particularly for middle school teachers to focus on the sky and the earth’s place in the solar system and to use the sun to show daily and seasonal changes.
NASS offers a set of horizontal cut-out paper sundials for your latitude. Freely make copies for yourself and your students. Construction requires no mathematics...only stiff construction paper xeroxed with the dial outline and the gnomon shadow-caster that is folded and glued to the dial face
Download your sundial here:
NASS-CutOut-HorizontalSundials.pdf1.74 MB
- Details
- Hits: 13244