Speciality Spotlight: Science & Design

As part of their study of light and vision, 3rd graders learned about animation. First, the students were introduced to the idea that a series of images that change very slightly, from one to the next, will give the viewer an illusion of motion if shown at a high enough frame rate. Starting with a student slowly rotating on a turntable as the rest of the class opened and closed their eyes on command, we progressed to Eadweard Muybridge’s groundbreaking photographs of animals in motion. Then we looked at how, instead of opening and closing our eyes, a well-timed flashing light (strobe) stops the images from blurring together.

The StroboDisks, seen here, ingeniously incorporate their own strobe, of sorts, in the form of viewing slits that automatically synchronize with the drawings on the white side of the disk. When viewed in a mirror, from the black side, their 16 carefully designed images come to life. An interesting effect can also be achieved when two students view each other’s animation through the rotating viewing slits of their own.

Brian Belsha and Chip Edwards, Science & Design Teachers