The history of flight continued at the Swan house today. We’ve been talking about how the people who invented the earliest flying contraptions were avid bird watchers. They studied birds in flight and took notice of how a bird’s wings moved when it was flying. It being the dead of winter and all, there wasn’t much chance that we were going to get a close look at birds in flight any time soon. So we opted to go the route of the phenakistoscope. The phenakistoscope was a precursor to movies, actually, and had nothing to do with flight; except that we decided to make a movie of flying birds using one. :)
Our awesome book gave us directions on how to draw a phenakistoscope using a protractor and compass, but would you believe we don’t own either of those items, even after all the math classes Aaron took in college? We don’t. So, I spent a little time searching for one online, and all I could find were the more complicated sort; therefore I did what anyone would do, I made my own.
First the kids cut out around the circle, and then the dotted slits. We used the pictures of a bird in five different stages of flight out of our book and glued them into the spaces (but you could do any kind of drawing you want). Then we cut out a hole in the middle and stuck a pencil through it. Lastly, we stood in front of a mirror with the images facing the mirror and used the pencil to slowly spin the phenakistoscope. You’ll want your head to be directly behind the phenakistoscope so you can see through the slits.
*just an fyi, in the picture on the top left above, Lincoln’s head is too far up for him to see the movie, after I took the picture, I had him lower back down to the right level. :) The picture on the bottom right shows what it should look like when you’re in the right place.
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