How to...make a thaumascope!!

In today's seminar, we were asked to design and make a thaumascope. A thaumascope is an example of camera-less animation, which works by creating the illusion that an image is moving, by spinning a piece of card fast enough to trick your eyes. In order to do this, you need to have a design in mind that will look as though it is moving once you start spinning the thaumascope.

For my own design, I chose to draw a bird on one side of the card, and a cage on the other, in the hope that once the card was spun, it would look as though the bird was inside the cage. Here are the steps I took to make my thaumascope:

Although they seem fairly straightforward to make, there are various considerations which need to be made. For example, on my first attempt at making the thaumascope, I drew the bird much bigger than the cage, which caused problems once it was spun. The design of the thaumascope is extremely important in order for it to be executed successfully. Overall, the thaumascope is an effective type of camera-less animation, which is simple and effective to make, and good fun!