Zoetrope

A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. The name Zoetrope was composed from the Greek root words "turning".

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. 

The basic drum-like form of the zoetrope was created in 1833/34 by British mathematician William George Horner. Horner's revolving drum had viewing slits between the pictures. He called it the "daedaleum" which failed to become popular until the 1860s, when a variant with the viewing slits on a level above the pictures, which allowed the use of easily replaceable continuous strips of images, was patented by both English and American makers, including Milton Bradley.  The American inventor William F. Lincoln named his version the "zoetrope", meaning "wheel of life".

While I was at the civic exhibition I created my own zoetrope. I traced a strip that was displayed of morphe doing a cartwheel. I firstly did it in pencil so it did not show up in the zoetrope so I redid it in black biro pen which worked much better.