Spin thaumatropes and discover many other animation toys at the ACMI museum.
Discover the thaumatropes at the ACMI museum
Make your own zoetrope
Zoetrope -- early animation toy
A zoetrope is an optical illusion toy and a way of making a short-looped animation. Zoetropes have been around for a long time, and pre-date film animation.
They use a series of sequenced images that form an animation loop, when they spin. The loop is created by matching the first and last image in the series.
To make a zoetrope, a sequence of images is pasted onto the inside of a cardboard cylinder. The cylinder has thin slits along the side. Once the cylinder starts to spin, you look through the slits to see your animation come to life,
Check out this video to see what one looks like.
Zoetrope instructions
Print the Shaun the Sheep zoetrope template (below). Remember to print A3, and print on cardboard if possible. If you can't use cardboard, print it on paper and paste it onto cardboard.
Cut out the zoetrope frame (bottom of the page) as instructed.
Form a cylinder out of the zoetrope frame and stick it together where it says 'glue here'.
Cut out the base, and punch a hole through the middle circle. This is where your stem will go; it could be a thick strong straw or something similar.
Use the flaps on the base and fold them into three spaces left at the bottom of the zoetrope frame; then fix the base to the zoetrope.
Take your stem and work it through the hole in the base; then fix it to the base. Try and have the stem as straight as possible in relation to the base, which should be as even as possible.
Cut out the animation strip, and place it inside your zoetrope with the images facing inwards.
Look through the slits and start spinning the stem of your zoetrope.
Experiment with different speeds until you see your animation come to life.
