A Box, A Lamp and a Rainy day.

Watching animations are a pleasure to many children and adults alike but, how about making one?  If we reflect on the process of making an animation it is clear that many different skills are needed, therefore skills that can be learnt and developed within a space for learning.  Communication, creativity, fine motor skills, higher function thinking skills and patience to name a few. 

Today, I made a Thaumatrope.  I used a simple technique which still caused me a little difficulty.

 

After one failed attempt I managed to make one that worked. Reflecting on the task made me realise that even though my thaumatrope was primitive, there was a vast thought process and deep problem solving skills that had to be made.

 

By spinning the pencil quickly back and forth the fish appears within the fishbowl. 

We then were introduced to more complicated forms of  cameraless animation.  My group and I were assigned the task of building of a working magic lantern, an early representation of a projector and invented circa 1650; it's earliest recorded users being Christiaan Huygens and Athanasius Kircher.  We used the designs from The Historians Toybox which informs about all styles of vintage cameraless animation.

 

 

Our animation was of lightening striking on a rainy day, however it did not work out as well as expected.  On reflection our slides were too far apart allowing our brains to understand and compute a gap between each one.  We also found that we had to place the magic lantern close to the wall to see a reflection after having to change from colour to black as colour did not show up at all.

 

Nonetheless, even though there were flaws in our animation, the design of the box worked really well.  As a group, within our own learning space, we communicated, problem solved, researched and took in instructions, followed instruction and built a magic lantern from a box, a lamp and a rainy day.