Zoetropes - Animated Science

PHYSICS MOVIES

OLD FASHIONED ZOETROPES

I have my physics students make zoetropes as a means of solidifying their understanding of topics in phyiscs.

A zoetrope is a device that produces the illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the  Greek words (zoe), meaning "alive, active", and  (trope), meaning "turn". "Zoetrope" taken to mean "active turn".

The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion.

Materials

Plastic Tub

Foam Board Circle 6” Diameter

6” Diameter Circle on White Paper with Center Point

Poster Board Strip  3.25” x 20”

Nail

Cork

2 1” squares od HDPE

Pre-made animation strip

Scissors

Glue

Tape

Making the Zoetrope

Glue the white circle to the foam board circle.

Stick the nail through the center of the disc and wiggle it until the disc spins freely on the nail.

Carefully cut out the two animation strips. Do not cut out the slits. Carefully glue them end to end to the poster board. Leave 1” exposed at one end.

Curl the poster board with the animation strip inside. Overlap and glue the 1” in tab.

When the glue is dry, cut out the slits along the movie strip.

Tape the cylinder (slits up), securely to the foam board circle (white circle up).Do not allow tape to cover the slits.

Push the nail through a piece of HDPE, then through the foam disc, then through another piece of HDPE.  Put the nail into the hole in the tub and secure it with the cork.

Use the cork to spin the cylinder. Make sure the cylinder spins freely.

Your Zoetrope is Complete!!!!

View the animation by spinning the cylinder as you look through the slits.

This animations depicts the fusion of a 4 Hydrogen nuclei fusing to form Helium.

Helium contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons. Lightning bolts represent energy given off.  

Zoetrope Instructions
Zoetrope Strips  Sample Animation and Blanks

   

Drawing Your Own Animation

You will design two (2) animation strips to represent any two (2) physics concepts

You will be provided pre-formatted blank animation strips.

Begin with a plan.

Organize your diagram to fit the 12 box format.

Begin with pencil sketches until you are sure about your concept layout.

Use black ink to outline the diagram.

Use color to enhance your animation.

The more vibrant the colors the better the movement pattern will appear.

You can create depth to images by layering materials like construction paper cutouts, string, beads etc… to represent objects in the animation.

Because the 12 pictures pass by very quickly, the animated sequence should not by overly complex.

You do not need to be a great artist.  As you saw in the sample animation, the drawing can be simplistic, circles, squares and lines. Just use your imagination.

Animation Ideas

Falling Objects

Collisions

Molecular Motion

Phase Changes

Vectors

Displacement

Momentum

Energy

Simple Machines

Rotational Motion

Reflection in a Mirror

Refraction of Light

Circuits

ETC…ETC…ETC…

10 Brain Facts

Each and every second of your life, several billion bits of information pass through your brain.

Messages within your brain travel through trillions of neural connections at speeds up to 250 miles per hour.

Your brain generates 25 watts of power while you are awake - enough to illuminate an light bulb.

Your brain uses 20% of your body's energy - while accounting for only 2% of your body weight.

Juggling has shown to change the brain in as little as seven days. The studyindicates that learning new things helps the brain to change very quickly.

The average number of thoughts that humans are believed to experience each day is 70,000.

Boredom  s brought on by a lack of change of stimulation, is largely a function of perception, and is connected to the innate curiosity found in humans.

There is no sense of pain within the brain itself. This fact allows neurosurgeons to probe areas of the brain while the patient is awake. Feedback from the patient during these probes is useful for identifying important regions, such as those for speech, that are spared if possible.

A child's ability to learn can increase or decrease by 25 percent or more, depending on whether he or she grows up in a stimulating environment.

It's no accident that telephone numbers in the United States are seven digits long. Our working memory, a very short-term form of memory which stores ideas just long enough for us to understand them, can hold on average seven digits.

Electrical Circuits Tutorials PhET Simulations

The University of Colorado at Boulder provides an excellent website for Interactive Simulations and Tutorials for Physics Education.  The PhET site boasts more than 75 million simulations that can be delivered online to teachers and students.

In my Conceptual Physics classroom I use the the tutorial simulation for Electrical Circuits.

 http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/circuit-construction-kit-ac

Demonstrating both series and parallel circuits on the SMART Board is very easy.

Students can then use tablets or clasroom computers to build their own circuits. This tutorial allows students to understand a wide variety of characteristics of circuits.  The tutorial allows students to build circuits in a variety of ways including switches, wires, batteries and and light bulbs, as well as, inductors, resistors and capacitors.

Once students complete their circuits, they can utilize a series of built in tools including current and voltage charts, ammeter, voltmeter and a stopwatch to analyze their completed circuits.

Problem Solving with SCAMPER

One of the greatest difficulties students face is thinking outside of the box on their own.

Education has so handcuffed students into thinking the way the teacher wants, the book explains, the rubric directs or the directions instruct, that they have become incapable of striking out on their own for fear of being, OH MY GOSH!!! WRONG!!!!

Bob Eberle developed the SCAMPER system in 1982 to assist students in ways to creatively approach problem solving.

SCAMPER is an acronym of options students can call upon in their approach to solving problems by creative means when thinking outside the box and extending the boundaries is a necessary part of the process solution.

S - SUBSTITUE       What other material, process, method could we use instead?

C - COMBINE         What can we add, cluster or put together to change our perspective?

A - ADAPT               What can we change, adjust or do differently to fit the situation?

M - MODIFY           How can we alter or change the form or quality? Can we resize the form?

P - PUT TO USE      What else could this be used for? Where can this be valuable?

E - ELIMINATE      What could we remove or omit to change our perspective?

R - REVERSE          Could we deconstruct the information to understand the process?    

How many of us have witnessed that classroom where every students can follow directions and achieve the desired result? The classroom where 32 paper look exactly the same because each student can follow the designed algorithm and produce the expected end product?

But, can these same students think out side the box, without a rubric, without specified directions, without a known value as an outcome?  Can these students bring something to the table from another classroom, from a life experience or from another source and derive their own outcome?

It is imperative that the process of learning provide students the opportunity to problem solve free from expectation of producing an expected outcome.  To be able to experience the processes of due diligence necessary to produce an outcome, correct or otherwise.  A process that allows students to make mistakes without judgement, but encouragement to search out a better solution.  A learning environment that values that process as a means to an outcome but not the only outcome.

Allow students to SCAMPER.   

   

Paper Airplanes - Intro to Bernouli

“The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.”

                                             -Wright Brothers -

As an introduction to Bernouli's Principle and the concepts of air pressure and currents,

I like to spend a day making paper airplanes with my students.

I found a terrific website by Ryan Farrington  

(http://www.ncgraphicarts.com/ryan/other/planes.htm ) 

that has design plans for several variations of paper airplanes. 

I provide my students with these plans. My students then must create and decorate four airplanes.  They must make at least two from the designs I provide for them.

(A great excercise in following directions) 

We then trek out to the football stadium and launch our planes trying to get them to land in the zeroes of the 40 and 50 yard line markers on the field.

 Students take notes on the effectiveness of their designs and methods of tossing their planes.

We then head back to the classroom to discuss the physics of flight and the Principles of Bernouli.