iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Stop motion animation, as we argued in a previous post,  is a cinematographic technique that consists of animating a set of static pictures or objects through placing them in separate frames then combining them together in a sequential way to give the appearance of movement. The basic process of ‘of animation involves taking a photograph of your objects or characters, moving them slightly, and taking another photograph. When you play back the images consecutively, the objects or characters appear to move on their own.’

It's an object that spins or whirls through some form of kinetic energy transfer. Weather vanes and pinwheels  are whirligigs since they move in the wind. The history of whirligigs can be traced back over a thousand years. In the US colonial days, whirligigs evolved into more complicated designs and are considered an art form (folk art).

My students made beautiful patterned figure paintings to show movement. See their gallery on Artsonia. These paintings are also the backdrop for a stop-motion digital extension lesson where students animated a mannequin to show movement over their movement paintings. See this lesson and results here.