STEM Activity: Make Your Own Zoetrope

Animation combines art and STEM in fascinating ways. Now you can too, with your very own zoetrope! Follow the steps below to create optical illusions with a DIY handheld animation device that will impress your friends and family.

Materials Needed

• Construction paper, any dark color
• Construction paper, white
• Glue stick
• Marker
• Paper plate
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Tape

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Fold a piece of dark construction paper in half lengthwise (hot dog style), then cut down the fold line to make two strips.
    
2. Use a glue stick to attach the short side of the strips together to make one long strip.
    
3. Fold a piece of white construction paper in half lengthwise (hot dog style), then fold it in half lengthwise again.
    
4. Cut down the fold lines to make four strips. Glue two of the white strips across the bottom of the dark strip, and set the other two white strips aside for later.
    
5. Use a ruler and draw a dot every 2 inches across the top edge of the dark paper. You should have 10-11 marks.
    
6. At each mark except the last one, use scissors to cut notches approximately ¼ inch wide and 2 inches long. Be careful not to cut the white paper. When you’re done, it will look like a castle wall!
    
7. Draw a simple animation sequence, like a bouncing ball, across the white part of the strip. You will need to position each drawing between two notches. Be sure to leave the space after the last notch blank.
    
8. At the last mark after the last notch, trim the strip. Then, add glue to the blank space.
    
9. With your drawings facing the inside, attach the strip by overlapping your first drawing on the blank space with glue. It should look like a paper crown!
    
10. Poke a hole in the center of the paper plate and insert a pencil. Use tape to secure it so that the plate is facing up and the pencil is sticking out underneath the plate.
     
11. Tape the “paper crown” to the plate so that the notches are at the top. You just made your very own zoetrope!
     
12. To test your animation, hold the pencil with both hands and twist it in one direction so that the plate spins. If the plate is too wobbly, loosely grasp the pencil with your fist directly beneath the plate to stabilize it.
     
13. Keep the fun going! You can use your leftover white construction paper strips to draw new animations and tape them inside your zoetrope for even more creative experimentation.

What Are We Discovering?

A zoetrope is an animation device that creates the illusion of motion. It is constructed using a cylinder with vertical slits or slots that are cut into the sides. When you try out your zoetrope, you’ll see that still images appear to come to life through its mechanical design, which predates cinema.

The retina, the light-sensitive layer at the back of each of your eyes, plays an important role in how you experience this device. The human retina retains an image for far under one second. If a new image appears within this time, the brain puts it together with the previous image. This pairing makes it seem like a continuous sequence as the cylinder spins!

National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductee Lanny Smoot invented an interactive zoetrope, which can animate holographic images or solid figures. Unlike standard zoetropes, an interactive zoetrope is capable of irregularly occurring, interactive behavior. For example, by speaking into a microphone connected to an interactive zoetrope with solid figures (like table tennis balls featuring various faces painted on them), you can change the viewing experience. How cool is that?!

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