The Thaumatrope

The Thaumatrope was invented in London 1824 by John Ayrton Paris. The thaumatrope is a paper disk with pictures on each side of it and is attached to two pieces of string as seen in the picture below.

In order for the thaumatrope to work you need to twirl the strings in between your fingers really quickly. This video shows how to use the Thaumatrope. This video shows you how to create your own simple Thaumatrope.
There are two most known examples of the Thaumatrope. One example is the where the disk has a picture of a bird on one side of the disk, and on the other a cage. Another example has a bare tree on one side and on the other it has the leaves.

There are some advantages and disadvantages of using the Thaumatrope.

Advantages:

• The Thaumatrope is very cheap to make
• The Thaumatrope is very simple to make and isn’t very complicated 

Disadvantages:

• In order for the Thaumatrope allusion to work properly, it’ll require some artistic skill
• The Thaumatrope is a little too simple. It’s impossible for there to be more than two pictures