You might remember that earlier this week the tingle factor item was Snoopy Animation Cel's, and that the children were really interested in animation and the animation toys which came before movie animation. The children at school wanted to see animation toys, but I don't own any originals to show them. Roy came up with the perfect solution though - he would make them! Now, most of the old animation toys will need a bit of research before Roy can make them, but there is one which is very simple to make - the thaumatrope. Roy decided this would be the perfect thing to create this week so first he learned how and now he can teach you to make one too!
In Victorian times, before television, thaumatropes were a very popular toy. They were invented by Sir John Herschel in 1828 and use a concept called persistence of vision to turn two pictures into one. By turning the two discs very quickly, what started off as two separate images, like a fish and a fish bowl, suddenly become joined and the fish will appear inside the fish bowl! When you look at an image, your brain stores the picture for just a fraction of a second, so if you look at two pictures fast enough, you won't be able to clearly see them separately. If you would like to learn more about thaumatropes, or about how persistence of vision works, click here or here.
'Fish In A Bowl' Thaumatrope
You Will Need:
- A Quarter of a piece of paper (smaller thaumatropes seem to work better but you can try making a big one)
- Pens - you could do yours in colour but Roy decided to just do his black and white
- Glue
- Scissors
- Wool or thick string
Method:
- Fold your piece of paper in half.
- Draw a circle on your piece of paper. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you could use a cup or a compass if you like.
- Cut Out your circles. You can cut them both out at once by keeping the paper folded.
- On one circle, draw a fish bowl and on the other draw a fish - Roy drew two, after all he didn't want his fish to be lonely! This is a nice simple pattern, and Roy likes fish but when you have the hang of how the thaumatrope works you can try different pictures.
- Cut a length of wool longer than your circle - about 15cm should do it.
- Glue the string along the center of one circle and then glue the other circle over the top.
- If your circles don't meet up properly, don't worry you can trim them like Roy did.
- Wait until your thaumatrope is dry.
- Hold the string between your fingers, pull it tight and twirl your thaumatrope around to make the pictures merge.The camera isn't clever enough to capture the effect so if you want to see how thaumatropes work you will just have to make one for yourself!
- Now that you know how to make a thaumatrope, try making different pictures. A bird in a cage works very well and so does a chicken coming out of an egg. Your imagination is the limit!