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By Mom Unplugged, October 16, 2009 5:03 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was wheel. I searched around for ideas and came up with this one which sounded really interesting: a zoetrope!

What is a zoetrope you ask? (I didn’t know what it was either.) A zoetrope works on the same principle as a flipbook, one of those little books where you flip the pages and it looks like an image is moving, but it uses a rotating cylinder to produce the illusion of movement.

I like this definition from Wikipedia: “A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures.” The word zoetrope comes from the Greek zoe (life) and trope (turn), so it is really a “wheel of life,” perfect for our theme!

I found instructions for making a zoetrope many different ways: using a round camembert cheese box, a PVC pipe, a straw and a printout, a paper plate, and ice cream containers. We originally made up our own version out of black poster board, an old CD, a small lazy susan, and lots of tape. It was OK, but a bit wobbly.

Then I found a totally ingenious person who made one out of a salad spinner! Why didn’t I think of that? We absolutely had to try it and the result was AWESOME! It is an easy project that produces a maximum “wow factor.” Try it, here’s how:

Use electrical tape to tape off the slits on the salad spinner basket leaving every third slit open. We used 3/4″ electrical tape and that just happened to be exactly the right size for the job.

For images, the salad spinner genius used cutouts of the phases of the moon from a calendar. Very clever but I decided to draw my own pictures.

On a piece of white paper I marked off a series of 3/4″ x 3/4″ squares.

Then, using a black Sharpie, I drew a face with a changing mouth and waving hair, making each image slightly different than the previous one.

The tedious part was cutting out all 26 images and taping them in sequence to the blocked off areas of the inside of the salad spinner.

Finally, using a clump of rolled up tape, stick your zoetrope onto the overturned lid of the salad spinner, centering it as best you can. The zoetrope will be sitting on the rotating disk, and the salad spinner handle will be underneath.

Now for the fun: spin and look through the slots to see the “movie!” The view is best if you shine a bright light into the bowl of the zoetrope.

Hopefully you’ll see from this little 10 second video that we made, how cool this project really was!

Let’s not forget THE SCIENCE:

So how do flipbooks, zoetropes, thaumatropes (a rotating card with a different picture on each side, the pictures appear to combine when card is spun), cartoons, and old time film movies actually work? Many people still believe in the “persistence of vision” theory, in which it is thought that an image remains in the eye for a certain time after the image source is actually gone (ie. the optic nerve is the cause). Apparently that theory is no longer in favor these days. A more popular theory at the moment involves something called Beta movement where the brain itself apparently combines rapidly flashing images thus forming a perception of movement (ie. the brain is the cause). It seems that no one really understands any of this completely, but here are a few informative links if you are interested:

The Myth of Persistence of Vision, by Joseph and Barbara Anderson

Lectures: Visual Perception 8 - The Moving Image

FIELD TRIP:

You can visit a real zoetrope at the following museums:

V&A Museum of Childhood, London, UK

The Ghibli Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Great Lakes Science Center, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Headwaters Science Center, Bemidji, MN, USA

Have fun!

(Be sure to visit the links to other people’s wheel Unplugged Projects on last Monday’s Weekly Unplugged Project post.)

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By Mom Unplugged, October 4, 2009 8:35 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was weather and the weather today was windy, VERY windy. We decided to try making a homemade anemometer (device that measures wind speed) with the instructions that I found here.

You’ll need some stiff, corrugated cardboard, four small Dixie-type paper cups, a long sharp pencil with eraser, a stapler, scissors, a push pin and some modeling clay.

First cut the small rims off the paper cups using the scissors.

Next cut the cardboard into two strips of equal length. Staple them together in the form of a cross.

Color one cup a different color. Red or something bright would be easier to spot, but all we could find that would work on the waxy surface of the cup was a black Sharpie.

Find the exact center of your cross by drawing an “X” between the corners of the center portion like this:

Where the lines cross is the center and is where you will put your thumb tack. (NOTE: This step is easiest to do before you attach the cups).

Staple a cup to the end of each cardboard strip. Make sure they are all facing the same way and are aligned perpendicular to the cardboard strips.

Push the pin through the center of the cross and into the eraser of the pencil.

Take your anemometer outside and stick it to a porch railing or table in a base made out of modeling clay.

Your anemometer should now spin in the wind! (*SHOULD* - read note below!)

To check the speed, count the number of times the colored cup passes by you in one minute. Obviously the more times it swings by, the faster the wind. You can measure at different times of day to compare the wind speeds.

If you want to get really scientific you can calibrate your anemometer using your car. Read the clever instructions for how to do it here.

* NOTE* - We discovered that although it was a very, very windy day out (55 mph gusts), the gusts were so variable in strength and direction that our anemometer didn’t spin very well (but it did blow off the railing once or twice!).

It worked much better inside with human-generated wind as you can see here in this very primitive video! (PS. Please ignore my messy house):

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If you joined in this week’s weather Unplugged Project, please link to your project post (not just your blog - we always want to be able to find your post) in the Linky below. If you didn’t join in the Unplugged Project but think you might like to in the future, read more about how to participate here. We’d love to have you!

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Wheel

I must be in a “W” phase at the moment. I hope to see you next week!

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Comments (19)

By Mom Unplugged, September 22, 2009 2:33 pm

Feather was the theme of this week’s Unplugged Project. We decided to try making a quill pen out of some big, beautiful turkey feathers that a friend gave us.

I found very detailed instructions here: Cutting Quill Pens from Feathers. This project involves sharp knives, so unless you have older children, you will probably end up doing most of the work like I did.

First temper the quill to toughen it up. We filled a small, all metal pan with sand from our giant sand pile (you can use a tin can for this part too) and heated it in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Next we stuck our feather tip into the hot sand and left it there until the sand was cool.

Use a sharp kitchen knife to scrape off some of the feathers near the end in order to make a feather-free area to grip.

Find the orientation of your feather. This will determine which side you are going to cut. Feathers curve and you want the pen to curve back in your hand as you write. The feather is top side up in this photo.

The first cut is actually made opposite the way you would think. Hold the feather pointed away from you and top side up. Using scissors, cut the tip off the feather at an angle slanting away from you (so more of the top side is gone than the bottom).

The second cut is a long shallow cut along the bottom of the feather. It should be centered along the top cut and should remove about half the tube. This opens up the feather and you can dig out any membranes that are inside using tweezers.

The next part is making the slit. I didn’t really understand this step until I saw how my cuts had shaped the tip, but you will see two little points (the website calls them “horns”) that are formed by the intersection of the two cuts.

Squash the tip of the feather flat so the two points/horns are flat one against the other. Press hard and this should make a crack in your feather tip halfway between the points. Ideally it should only be about 1/4″ long.

The final step (and the one I found the most difficult) is shaping the nib. Look closely at the instructions to determine the proper shape. I used scissors for my first cuts, and then a sharp kitchen knife to gradually shave the nib to hopefully something like the proper shape!

Clip off any teeny tiny rough bits, dip your nib in some good ink and test your quill on high-quality paper. I used sepia non-waterproof (ie. washable) ink. Obviously washable ink is preferable if kids are going to use it!

I must say, while not perfect, the quill actually did hold ink in the shaft and wrote much better than I expected. Not too bad for a first try at a lost skill that really requires much practice and patience to learn properly.

If you decide to try this, I urge you to read the much more complete, knowledgeable and well-photographed instructions at Cutting Quill Pens from Feathers.

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If you did a feather Unplugged Project this week, then please link to your project post in the linky below. If you didn’t join in, please do not link, but read more about how to get involved in the Weekly Unplugged Project here. We’d love to have you!

By the way, sorry I am late with the post this week, but life comes before blogging!

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be very open-ended:

The Letter J

Enjoy!

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Comments (9)

By Mom Unplugged, September 20, 2009 9:48 pm

We all had a lovely time flipping rocks this morning for the 3rd Annual International Rock Flipping Day! Honestly, I could not have imagined that rock flipping could be so interesting, but my children, my husband and I all had the best time wandering around flipping rocks (and putting them carefully back of course).

The children ran through our yard and the woods by our house searching for perfect rocks:

We learned that our rocks here are quite beautiful, very volcanic and full of holes:

This one actually showed a distinct lava flow pattern on it:

Under our rocks we discovered:

Mold:

A small mushroom that grew up in the shade of two tightly stacked rocks:

A baby centipede - a teeny tiny yellow thread with lots of legs. I apologize for the bad picture, but much of what we found was very small and hard to photograph:

Strange white beetles with legs and antennae, barely the size of a grain of rice:

The much expected “Rollie Pollies” or Pill Bugs, but these guys were whiter than we had ever seen before:

Ants, LOTS of ants and eggs. Much to our surprise we found that ants don’t just live underground, but actually use the holes in our volcanic rocks as homes and nurseries!

You can even see little dots inside the ant eggs in this photo, Each collection of eggs seemed to have a “nurse ant” to go with it:

A peanut that had been buried (and probably forgotten) by a squirrel - round thing in the middle of the photo:

A small cricket:

Mystery eggs? Not ant eggs and about the size of small beads. Any ideas?

A spider on a pretty rock. Can you see it?:

What did you find under rocks where you live? Email Susannah of Wanderin’ Weeta with a link to your post, or upload your photos to the Flickr International Rock Flipping Day Group.

I will post our feather Unplugged Project and the Linky tomorrow afternoon or evening.

Hope to see you then!

PS. Thank you Susannah for our Junior Rock Flipping Badge. The kids will be excited about this tomorrow morning!

Comments (0)

By Mom Unplugged, September 20, 2009 8:55 am

Today is the 3rd Annual International Rock Flipping Day!

Bored? Need something to do because your TV is off? (Yes, today is also the first day of Turnoff Week!)

Then go out and flip a rock to study what is underneath. Record your results via photos, poetry, art, diorama, cupcake replica, in other words, anything at all! Post on your blog. Or, add your photos to the International Rock Flipping Day Flickr Group. Read more about it here.

It is a gorgeous fall day here, perfect for rock flipping. We’ll head out later and I’ll post the results here on Unplug Your Kids.