Scientific gift "Owl's 13" from the Science and Engineering workshop

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SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
GIFT INSTRUCTION

Owl's 13

Hello, dear friend!

At the Science and Engineering program, you received as a gift one of the first devices for creating cartoons and movies. This is a real zootrop!

Safety precautions:

(Read this text with an adult from your home)

Everything in this kit is safe.

Always check the batteries before use. If they are swollen or deformed, they must be replaced with new ones. Take damaged batteries to the nearest collection point.

The wires have sharp ends; handle them carefully.

Do not touch the resistor while the device is in operation, it may become very hot.

For reference:

For modern people, you and me, dear friend, such things as cartoons and movies are already considered something ordinary. But they have a very long and complicated history. The first step to creating the first cartoons can be considered a popular toy of the XIX century - thaumatrop.

In fact, this is a small circle with an image painted on one side and an object missing on the second half on the second side. For example, a bird and a cage.

Ropes were attached on both sides of this circle, and if you twist them and then pull them on both sides, the circle will begin to rotate quickly, which will result in the overlapping of two patterns on top of each other, that is, we will see that the bird is in a cage.

The principle of action of the thaumatrop is based on the effect of persistence, that is, our retina captures the image for a split second, and if the images change rapidly, then they overlap each other.

The next step in the development of animation was the invention of Joseph Plateau - phenakitiskop. The device looked like a flat disk, on which several frames were depicted, separated by narrow slots-slots. And if you rotate it in front of the mirror and look through the slots, the frames merged with each other, forming a short cartoon.

Phenakitiscopes did not live long, because zootrops quickly replaced them. In the zootrop, tapes with successive pictures were already used, which were inserted into the drum with vertical slots. When the drum rotates, the slots merge and through them a short animation is clearly visible.

In your set:

Battery compartment with red (plus "+") and black (minus "-") wires
AAA battery 1.5 V, which is easily replaced by any other AAA battery
Sticky square
Rubber ring
Electric motor
Paper tab with an image of an owl
Half Petri dish with a hole in the center

Instruction:

1

Take a paper tab with an image of an owl and cut out narrow slots exactly along the line. Be careful not to wrinkle the paper.

2

Connect the two ends of the paper tab so that the owls look inside the formed ring. Carefully make sure that the first and last slot coincide with each other when applying. For reliability, you can glue the connection with glue, for example an adhesive pencil, if you have it at home.

3

Take the sticky square, remove the protective paper from it, and divide it into 6 parts. We will use four of them for fastening a paper liner in a Petri dish, and two for fastening a Petri dish on the axis of the motor.

4

Take the Petri dish and glue 4 small pieces of the sticky square and one piece in the center above the hole on its walls from the inside.

5

Insert the paper tab inside the Petri dish so that the paper sticks to the pieces of the white square. Slots should protrude above the Petri dish.

6

Now take the electric motor and push the metal eyelets to the side (we will fix the wires for them).

7

Take the battery compartment and insert the battery into it so that its minus (flat end) rests against the spring.

8

Attach both cables from the battery compartment to the "ears" of the motor. To do this, thread one of the wires into the left ear of the motor, and the other wire into the right ear and bend the wires. For security, you can reinforce these connections with pieces of adhesive square.

9

Check if the motor axis is spinning. If it starts to spin, then gently stop it with your fingers, then the motor will stop rotating until you start it.

10

Now stick a small piece of the sticky square on the tip of the motor axis and insert it into the hole in the Petri dish. Very slowly and carefully so that the Petri dish does not touch the motor housing.

11

Gently squeeze with your fingers pieces of the sticky square on the axis of the motor on both sides of the Petri dish. It is necessary to firmly fix the Petri dish on the motor.

12

Now spin the Petri dish clockwise or counterclockwise to make it spin.

13

Put the motor with the Petri dish on the rubber ring. For reliability, hold the motor by hand.

14

Look through the slits of paper at the images of the owl and watch what happens to it.

What happened?

1

The principle of operation of the zootrop is based on two phenomena: persistence and inertia of vision.
2

Persistence is the ability of our eyes to capture an image for a split second. This phenomenon is very easy to observe if you look at the light bulb and then look away: you can immediately see that you see a light spot from the light bulb for several seconds, although there is no longer any light source from the light bulb.
3

But do not forget that any object that you see reflects light from itself. Thus, the image of this object "gets stuck" in your eye and the brighter the object, the easier it is to observe this effect.
4

It is because of this delay that another phenomenon appears - inertia of vision. If the images will quickly change each other (faster than our visual organ will "forget" the image), then these images will begin to overlap and form a solid picture that moves smoothly.
5

In addition to cartoons, this phenomenon can be seen if you quickly turn the flashlight or torch in a circle. If the rotation is fast enough, as a result you see a solid outline. There is even a separate direction in art, which you can also master - google on the phrase freezelight for inspiration.

Next science workshop in Barcelona

-, Saturday
scientific workshop for children 5-6, 7-10 and 11-13 years

CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS OF ... FOOD!

We will understand the chemical and physical properties of food, create gummy bears, assemble our own devices for extracting odors, figure it out in food additives and create them in the laboratory, study the physical and chemical properties of familiar products, and even prepare rations for astronauts. Science has never tasted so good!

None of our programs are repeated. The schedule of the nearest programs you can see on the page Calendar ↗. And on the page about us ↗ you can see which programs we have already run.