I come from the coast of Connecticut. I have memories of going to the nearby deli and picking up a tide chart for my father, so he knew when he could leave for the best fishing conditions (I myself never quite found out what those conditions were, however).
My parents moved by the water recently, but the deli doesn't carry tide charts anymore. My parents always have to google when the next tide is. It's obviously fine, but not ideal, especially since there is a lot of conflicting information.
So, I decided to utilize NOAA's CO-OP API to grab tide data from the nearest weather station as well as another API for the sunrise/sunset/moonphase data. With this data, I was able to create a piece that not only graphs the tide on a plane of Time x Waterlevel, but has a gradient background that indicates whereabouts in the day you are.
Finally, the idea for the fabrication was based on making it look good in a home. I went with a weathered, rounded, retro square with a natural wood face. Given another pass at the piece, I would likely clean up some dimensions, switched to a specifically clean finish (not weathered), but maintained the formfactor.
Photo Credit: Alan Winslow
Sunrise
Midday
Sunset
Midnight
The API's I used here can be found here (NOAA) and here (Visual Crossing). NOAA is used for the tides and waterlevel, while visual crossing grabs the sunrise, sunset, and moonphase. The visualcrossing API website will automatically generate an API link for you, so I am only going to explain the NOAA API for ease of use.
<https://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter?station=8467150&date=today&product=predictions&units=english&time_zone=lst_ldt&interval=hilo&format=json&datum=STND>