Pre-Chronometer, Ships at Sea Used ‘Sundial Cannons’ to Mark Noon O’Clock
I was talking with someone – sadly we were not on a boat at the time – about seafaring inventions, and was previously unaware of sundial cannons; I knew of noonday guns (on land) and had seen lenses used to set wicks aflame, but had never considered this setup as a timekeeper, especially not while at sea!
In naval operations, the gun had to be mounted on a rotating base because its orientation had to be in the north-south direction. The directional axis of the gun was determined using the ship’s compass. In such operation, the gun was frequently referred to as the “noonday gun” because it fired at noon.[3] This practice became obsolete when the ship chronometer was invented. The use of the sundial cannon was subsequently confined to substandard ships.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
