Zoetrope

Dear supporters

Many thanks for your support and encouraging comments.

The Zoetrope has a few days left and 624 votes, which means it will soon expire on LEGO Ideas.

However, I do believe the idea deserves more time, so expect to see the return of the Zoetrope next year.

Follow me on Flickr to catch the return.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/142450639@N03/

Thank you!

the new design and motorised!

Thank you all for the support. I am half way to the key milestone of 1000. 

I've been working on ideas to make the Zoetrope a little more visually interesting and attractive, and explored some brick patterns. The latest sturdy lightweight structure makes this possible. This is also the first time I've created the new structure in LDD. 

Have a look at the rendered image and let me know what you think. I'll be happy to try alternatives. 

Thanks for taking a look!

The Zoetrope has been included in the Staff Picks and as a result we have over 100 new supporters in just two days! That's a significant jump in interest compared to the previous months.

Thanks to all my supporters, old and new!

The Zoetrope has been redesigned to be stronger, smoother and simpler!

Inspired by how simple the mini-zoetrope was, I have completely redesigned the underlying nonagon so that the panels around the edge now add structural strength and rigidity. This means the supporting structure is now massively simpler and lighter, with only three simple spokes. 

The animation panels simply slide into place, which is in fact an easier process than the original. 

It runs more smoothly with no bounce in the panels, which I'm sure makes the animation smoother.

I plan to refine the running man animation and will post a new video when I can. 

A miniature version of the Zoetrope.

It uses the Nexo Knights hexagonal shield as the basis for the nonagon. 

the running man animation is a little rudimentary, but it was my first prototype at this scale, and I think works well enough. 

A new animation of a Ballerina minifigure.

It's not easy to get anything too complex working well, so I've found it best to keep it simple. But the results are still very satisfying and it's worth saying that the video never does it justice!

Thanks to everyone for your support. 

Zoetropes in the 18th century tended to have an even number of images with the slits positioned above them in a tall cylinder. This was done so that single strips of paper could be easily installed and exchanged. Because each image in the LEGO Zoetrope is individually brick built, the advantage is no longer there, and the additional height would likely make the cylinder over heavy.

So the challenge was how to make an odd sided shape, and the answer was to think in three’s. A technic pulley can be used to create a three spoke hub. Each spoke is then used to hold three sides each, the middle one directly, with two held either side. The joints between each group of three sides are then secured on a 2nd three spoke hub of different radius and at 180deg to the first. Thus we have a nine sided shape, a nonagon.

The angles between the panels are approximately 140deg, but not exact. This is because the arms of the 1st hub are not quite the exact radius necessary. The radius of the arms of the 2nd hub are also slightly “out of system” requiring a sliding fixture. I had to do the trigonometry to check the construction.

Building the zoetrope with physical bricks was always going to be necessary to demonstrate the animation, but it also proved essential to ensure the nonagon structure could be made sufficiently rigid. My initial Zoetropes had a lot of slack and “bounce” in the sides which meant the images weren’t sufficiently in line with each other. So solid technic joints are used throughout and the two hubs are separated in height to give greater rigidity. You can see I also found it necessary to add three cross beams to prevent the remaining slight drooping of intermediate sides.

I’m confident that improvements are still possible and will continue to refine when I get the chance.

To begin with, many thanks to all my supports for the steady progress. We're now at 200.

Now, a picture of the prot​otypes.

The very first version, which looked like a bicycle wheel, did not survive and so unfortunately is not there.

You can see the large size of the early version, which made the zoetrope too heavy and strained the technic gears and beams. So I attempted to build the smallest handheld zoetrope I could, and this turned out to be a nice size, so long as I could get a working animation on a 6 by 6 panel.

From there the variations were all about getting strength and stability in the nonagon construction.

I’m hoping to continue and explore new approaches, including the new technic circular rack elements, to see if I can simplify it further.

And again, the Zoetrope has been featured! 

Follow the link...

http://silentmode.tv/commentary/2016/11/10/underated-lego-ideas-october-2016/

Many thanks for the mention SilentMode and the kind comments!