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Specifically, I made a modular zoetrope with my laser cutter. It works okay! I need to think harder about the optics of my designs to find stuff that will animate well in this context, but the principle seems really really sound and I'm happy with it as a start.
@joshmillard finding the original how/tos for zooetropes should be fun. Maybe not even online!
I am thinking about how they could be fitted into little volumes of unused space, esp if you can make them in a range of sizes. What do you use for propulsion?
@joshmillard Rubber bands, pull cords, tiny cranks? These would be such a delight as public art. Or battery powered with... a repurposed wireless doorbell? Then they could live behind glass. Hm.
@clew Propulsion's an interesting question! I cut mine knowing I could fit it to my vinyl turntable, so that was easy, but I also tested just hand spinning it on a pencil and that worked pretty well.
It'd be nice to figure out a little mechanical turntable assembly that could be built from minimal parts and used to hand crank a zoetrope, though. Not my wheelhouse but I imagine there's some good solutions out there.