Thaumatrope

Often referred to as Thaumatrope or Magic Spinner, is an optical illusion. The two individual images of the stick man are stuck back-to-back upside down. When you twirl the elastic bands that is attached to the images and then twirl it really fast, your brain does not even see the difference between the first picture and the second picture. This makes it seem like both pictures are in the same place, even though they are not.

How easy is it to make? How much fun is it and for how long does it last?

It was pretty easy to make the instructions in order to make one is simply straightforward. Plus, you don't need much materials in order to make one. All you would need is paper, scissors, glue and elastic band or stick. When sticking it together I had to make sure that it lined up together and when rotating it using the elastic bands make sure that you don't tug it as it could rip easily. Other than that it doesn't take no more than 5 minutes to make it. It was quite amusing and entertaining for the first few minutes and the making process was very fun, however considering the fact that it is just a stick man walking it did get quite tedious at the end.

What can't it do compared to an animated film?

It is extremely constrained in what it can do, for instance, you can’t exclude much else on the picture once it begins moving as you can only make use of the two actions. It is additionally constrained in movement as you can just have one shot while different types of animation can have various shots and angles. It just does the animation that is drawn which is an extremely basic movement while with an animated film you see heaps of movement and actions. It won’t have the same flow as an animated film would.

Is you thaumatrope actually animation?

Technically yes. The history of animation (and movie-making) begins with a simple thaumatrope device. The fact that the movement of the image makes us to think that the stick man is moving, but in fact it is just 2 images that are being flipped back and forth. This creates an illusion to imitate movement.

How old are thaumatropes?

Some people believe that ancient people living in caves in France had something like a thaumatrope as a toy. However, we do know that they were very popular in the Victorian times, before television or films were invented.

What would happen if one of the pictures was upside-down?

It would seem upside-down when the thaumatrope was spinning.

What happens if you spin the thaumatrope very slowly?

It wouldn't work. Your brain can see two different pictures rather than one overlapping picture   because it is spinning too slowly.

THAUMATROPE EXAMPLE



BIBLIOGRAPHY

What is a Thaumatrope? A Magic Spinner!. (n.d.). 1st ed. [ebook] Camera Obscura and World of Illusions, p.Single page. Available at: http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/education_groups/Thaumatrope_Activity.pdf [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017].