Category: Movie Wheels

How to Make the Movie Wheel (Phenakistiscope)

Lots of patterns to choose from:

  • Rotating Cube The heavy lines make it easy to view.
  • Bounding Cat    I...um...liberated it from a fantastic Howtoons page (note: the page doesn't exist any more)  about making a related device, the zoetrope. You can just cut the slots the regular way--don't worry about cutting into the images.
  • Runner , also liberated from the Instructables Howtoons
  • Running Horse  This is the classic running horse circa 1816 by Eadweard Muybridge.
  • Jumper  The original jumping movie wheel pattern.
  • Blank Pattern  Make your own movie!

Update: I have a friend who is a dedicated teacher in Germany named Thomas Buchwald. He makes amazing projects with his students and he has helped me improve several science toymaker projects, including this one. I told Thomas that many people, when they started using the movie wheel, the circle would rub against their hand. That stopped it too soon. In less than a day he figured out what I still couldn't figure out for years--that simply gluing a piece of foam in the middle would keep the circle straight. So if you have trouble with the circle rubbing, copy what you see at the beginning of this video clip. Thanks Thomas, for filling in my blind spots!

The instructional video starts with a science road show where my strudents show elementary school kids science exhibits, including movie wheels and zoetropes. It's a technology that's over a century old, but it's an unworldly experience that the kids get a huge kick out of!

Then it's on to making your own movie wheel. It is simplequick and to make--only about a half hour. The kids at the YMCA after school program help me show you how. The pattern you will use is here

They glue the pattern onto the thin cardboard, rough-cut and fine-cut. Accurately cutting the notches is particularly important to making the movie wheel work.

They darkened between the notches for the same scientific reason the best window screens are dark colored: to absorb unproductive light that would otherwise reflect into their eyes and cause glare. A paper clip provides a way for the movie wheel to spin. But the spinning images are just a blur, unless...

There are some tricks to using the movie wheel. The darkened side faces toward you. You spin the wheel and the look through the notches into the mirror (you need good light, too). Almost magically the images seem to come alive. There is a way to get around the need for the mirror if you have two people with movie wheels. Finally the instructional video talks a little about peristence of motion, the principle that makes the movie wheel work...and movies and TV.

More About the Movie Wheel

Learn some new tricks, see examples of animation, and make your own.

Learn some tricks

If you look through your spinning movie wheel at a friend's spinning movie wheel, you do not need a mirror! A group of kids I was working with discovered this.

If you have an old computer monitor or TV with cathode ray tube, not flat screen but fat one, try this:

Get in front of the TV or computer monitor. Spin your wheel and look through the slots at the monitor. Why the dark bands? The fact is, old TV and monitor are flashing a new picture onto the screen 30 times a second. Not 30 times a minute--30 times a second! And in between the flashes the screen is dark, about half the time--even though it's on. We don't detect this bizarre state of affairs unless we do something to cut through the blur. Movie wheels, like strobe lights, let us see high-speed repetitive (also know as "periodic" motion). You can also use the movie wheel to see the reeds flapping on the "Snake Charmer's Duck Call" project.

Ok, ready to design your own animation?

Print out this page. Some browsers and PDF viewers change the scale and the size of the printed pattern. Choose the print options that say something like "Actual Size" or "Scale: 100%." The grid pattern is there to help you keep you bearings as you go from one frame to the next. You might want to start with something simple, like a bouncing ball, or turning propeller.The best movie wheel strips:

  • use bold, dark lines (you can sketch out in pencil, but go over with magic marker or something)
  • move just a little from one frame to the next
  • go back to where they started by the end of the strip

Let's do a simple example to warm up on: a bouncing red ball.

  1. I draw the ball at the bottom of its bounce (frame 1 in the first illustration). I also go to the opposite frame (frame 7) and draw the other extreme: the ball at the top of its bounce, right against the edge of the wheel.
Step 1
Step 2
  1. Now fill in the in-between frames 4 and 10. In those frames I place the ball half-way in-between the extreme positions. The faint, dashed lines can help you place the ball accurately.
  1. Finally, I fill in the other frames. In frame 2, I have to estimate 1/3 of the way from frame 1 to frame 4. In frame 3, I place it 2/3 of the way from frame 1 to frame 4.
Step 3

Viewing this bouncing ball will be a bit odd at first. It will look like an wobbling, off-center red circle until you focus on just one frame.

Now you can make your own

How can you develop this strip? Could you make the ball squish when it hits the bottom? Could you make it slow down at the top and accelerate near the ground as a real bouncing ball would do?

Take it a step at a time. When you get advanced, you can make make objects travel from frame to frame. Notice that the jumping-guy pattern (the first one you made) has only 11 guys for 12 frames. The jumping-guy advances 1/11th of the way in each frame. I could have accomplished a similar movement with 13 guys.

Here is a pattern of a horse galloping

Links About Animation

By Eadweard Muybridge - Provided directly by Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57260211

Here is an in-depth audio recording about Edward Muybridge. (From Sidedoor, Smithsonian's podcast) Muybridge is famous for his sequential pictures of a galloping horse.

If you go to a video site like YouTube and type "zoetrope" you will find dozens of good historical pre-video devices in action.

Here are some interesting strips kids have made for zoetropes.

Here is a make-your-own zoetrope link.

Here is an excellent page about animations with some interesting videos and links by Cheshire Public Library in Connecticut.

The Exploratorium has always been an inspiration to me. Here are some of their science "snacks" about visual perception that are easy and can be set up in minutes.

Here are some  video of historical movie wheels (also know as 'Phantasmascope'' or ''Fantascope'' or ''Phénakisticope'').

I'd like to know how this project goes for you. I'm happy to answer questions about it. Feedback from you is an important way for me to know what works and what needs clarification.

Thaumatrope

The thaumatrope is a good warm up for the movie wheel and it only takes a minute to make. The mysterious message written on the thaumatrope pattern will appear when you spin it. Interestingly, the thaumatrope preceded --and led to the invention of-- the movie wheel.

What you need.

The thread could be dental floss or even a couple of very thin rubber band cut open and tied together.

STEP 1: Cut out the thaumatrope pattern and fold in half.

  1. Print out the pattern.
    Check the printed paper to make sure it did not re-scale the size of the pattern. Some browsers and PDF viewers change the scale and the size of the printed pattern. Choose the print options that say something like "Actual Size" or "Scale: 100%."
  2. Cut on the solid lines. Fold carefully right on the dashed line so the printed part is on the outside. Using a strait edge or a table corner will help make the fold straight.

STEP 2: Tape in the string and tape halves together.

  1. Tape a string onto the non-print side so it splits one of the halves, as shown.
  2. Tape the halves shut. You should now have a two-dimensional rectangle with letters on both sides a string splitting it right through the middle.

STEP 3: Try it out


Twirl the thaumatrope by rolling the string between thumb and forefinger of each hand as fast as you can. If you are using dental floss, sometimes you have to roll it awhile before it works smoothly. If using a thin rubber band, pull it slightly as you spin it. You should see "PERSISTENCE OF VISION." That expression was used to explain how we perceived animation. It is being superceded by the expression, "phi phenomenon."

Here is a blank pattern if you want to make your own design. You can cut it shorter if you want to.

More About Visual Perceptioninteresting strips kids have made for zoetropes

Round thaumatropes with pictures instead of letters

Here you can find more about explanations, activities and cool links related to visual perception.

I'd like to know how this project goes for you. I'm happy to answer questions about it. Feedback from you is an important way for me to know what works and what needs clarification.

Movie Wheels (phenakistiscope)

Movie Wheels Index

Here is a preview of what it's like to use a movie wheel (with the cat pattern), from my friend Thomas Buchwald. Thomas also figured out how to keep the wheel stable, with a small piece of foam glued on, which you can see at the beginning of the clip.

It's the ultimate optical illusion

They say that, "Seeing is believing." But however real the worlds that movies and videos create, they will always be a clever optical illusions."Animation" means "brought to life," and you can rediscover the excitement the pioneers of animation felt as they breathed life into pictures

It takes little more than half an hour to make a movie wheel out of a recycled cereal box. You could spend a lifetime watching TV without ever understanding how our eyes can see still images seem to come alive. But when you build and use a movie wheel, you can't help but start to grapple with "persistence of vision," the principle that allows our brain to see progressions of still images as moving.

Here are instructions for an even simpler "persistence of vision" toy, a Thaumatrope (not in instructional video format yet).

Here are some pictures from North Carolinian Louise Omoto Kessel--homesteader, homeschool mom and camp organizer showing the camp museum of various and some kids using them without the mirror.