Warning: At the end of this video, this zany guy will promote a phone. You don't have to watch that far - what I want you to see is a brilliant take on an optical illusion that that is not actually, as far as I can tell, that old, as optical illusions go. It starts at 1:10.


We have a roundup on Punnybop today of books and videos that show off the same "moving pictures" effect, but in smaller form. But it also has me thinking of another form of illusion that I've wanted to make for Z for quite some time: A zoetrope.

There are zoetrope kits out there, which I've never tried.



Also for the zoetrope's weird cousin, the praxiscope.



I have a fantasy about building a zoetrope that utilizes a motor to make it turn. I have many fantasies like this, and many of them unfortunately require storing junk in my house for times when I will actually produce such brilliant creations.

Fortunately for my family, I did not have zoetropes in mind when I gave up our perfectly good stove vent hood (which uses a fan to suck smoke and steam up into the vent) during a kitchen renovation currently in progress. It would have made an awesome zoetrope, but it was also a hulking beast. An old record player would be a more compact, tabletop model. You could also make one on a lazy susan with good ball bearings.

And of course, you can also make your zoetrope 3D. Check out this fascinating model, built on a phonograph.


The easiest first exposure to play with rapidly moving images is a thaumatrope. Flip books are simpler in one sense, requiring only a pad of small paper, but the ability to draw slightly changing images from one page to the next is a bit over the heads of most preschoolers. A thaumatrope uses a piece of cardboard and a couple of rubber bands and allows the child to draw any two images they'd like to appear together. A bird and a cage or flowers and vase are classic examples, but two figures will work as well, if they are in different relative positions, or features on a face.