THE AUTO-PHENAKISTOSCOPE
By Dan Rasmussen
Photograph by Sam Murphy
A HIGH-TECH SPIN FOR AN OLD TOY
Motorize a phenakistoscope, a 19th-century parlor novelty that preceded motion pictures, and keep its frames synched to an LED strobe by using a sensor and an Arduino microcontroller.
Invented in 1832 by Joseph Plateau, this device creates a moving picture from a sequence of stills arranged on a spinning disk and viewed through strategically cut slits. It’s easy to see how this invention and others like it evolved into movies and television.
My 9-year-old daughter and I wanted to make something new with Lego Mindstorms. We had a strobe, and we thought ...
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