Search Results

In this activity, learners create a simple “top” from a CD, marble and bottle cap, and use it as a spinning platform for a variety of illusion-generating patterns.

In this activity, a lightbulb is placed in front of a concave mirror. The actual lightbulb is not visible to the viewer, but the viewer can see the mirror image of the lightbulb formed in space.

Create an illusion where it appears that your hand has a hole in it. You'll see the results from when one eye gets conflicting information.

Are there boxes, is this an illusion, or is this real life Q-bert? Illusions are always fun to build especially when you can build them.

In this activity, learners construct a three-dimensional ambiguous cube to explore visual illusions and how our brains interpret or misinterpret information.

Up close, an array of dots could look random, but take a step back, and an image forms. By tracing over an image, learners can create their own dot based image.

In this activity about light and reflection, learners use a special device called a Mirage Maker™ to create an illusion.

In this activity about depth perception, learners create an optical illusion in a shoe box.

In this optics activity, learners discover how they can make glass objects "disappear." Learners submerge glass objects like stirring rods into a beaker of Wesson™ oil to explore how the principles of

Do you have a hard time matching paint swatches with your furniture? When you consider human perception, color is context dependent.

In this trick, hold your hand over a burning candle without getting burned, by reflecting and transmitting the light of two candles. This activity is best suited as a demonstration.

In this demonstration, amaze learners by performing simple tricks using mirrors. These tricks take advantage of how a mirror can reflect your right side so it appears to be your left side.

In this activity about light and perception, learners discover how a flash of light can create a lingering image called an "afterimage" on the retina of the eye.

Known as the waterfall effect, this activity demonstrates adaptation in our visual system.

We don't normally view people upside down and so our brains aren't accustomed to it.

How can you make one shade of gray look like two? By putting it against two different color backgrounds! This activity allows learners to perform this sleight of hand very easily.

In this activity, learners use a simple trick of perspective to dress friends in tiny cutout clothing. Learners make tiny pants out of card stock and tape them to the end of a stick.

Make a camouflage cut-out animal! Using patterned paper or magazine pictures from around the house, use your craft skills to make a paper animal that blends into its background.

In this fun and interactive online exhibit, the straight lines of a tile wall appear to curve. The learner moves the rows of tiles and changes the color of the grout to achieve the intriguing effect.

In this optics activity, learners discover that when they rotate a special black and white pattern called a Benham's Disk, it produces the illusion of colored rings.