Genuary is an annual event for generative artists. For each day in January you are a given a short prompt to create a piece of code-based art. More here: https://genuary.art

The prompt for January 3, 2025 is "Exactly 42 lines of code." Since Nodebox does not use "lines of code", I reinterpreted this to mean "Exactly 42 Nodes".

It's an interesting challenge. I didn't allow myself any "nodes" from my library - some of which have hundreds of nodes inside them - or any code libraries. That would be cheating. So only original native Nodebox nodes allowed. Even so, there are a near-infinite number of ways to choose 42 nodes and arrange them in a network. What to do?

My solution was a wacky "42 Node Clock". It creates a looping animation of a clock face with a triangular hand, color-cycling dots, a rotating yin-yang symbol, a waxing and waining star orbiting that yin-yang symbol, hour numbers in a party font, and a camera that follows the action, gently zooming in and out as it goes.

Network and screenshot attached. I used the PartyLetPlain font, so if you download this you'll probably get some random font instead; feel free to change it to whatever font in your system suits you.

You will also notice that I renamed all the nodes so that they count off from 1 to 42.

I will post my animation to Instagram and Threads; you can find it there if you want.

I will be thrilled if anyone replies to this post and says anything at all. If one of you decide to take up this challenge yourself, and share the result with us, I will be overjoyed!