An Amazing Handmade 3D Zoetrope Featuring Fish With Giant Teeth Endlessly Eating Other Fish

Toymaker Kevin Holmes of 4-Mation created an handmade zoetrope that features 3D printed green fish with yellow fins and big teeth endlessly dining upon other fish while spinning. This and another zoetrope of the company’s design featuring frogs ceaselessly jumping upon lily pads, were made from a modular 3D kit of original design, which will soon be available for purchase when their Kickstarter campaign launches in December. Those interested can sign up to be notified through the 4-Mation site or through their Facebook page.

Jumping frogs is our first animation, followed by Fish eating Fish, both were printed on a Form2. … It’s powered by 24 3Watt RGB LED strobes, precision timed by a microcontroller linked to an encoder motor. RPM(Strobe-rate), brightness, colour are all controlled from a phone app. The Android app (4-Mation) is already in the play store, iPhone app is in progress. Assemble the kit in about 1/2 hour then download and print one of our free animations – or design your own. Animations can be swapped in a minute.

Make Magazine spoke with Holmes at the Denver Maker Faire on October 27, 2017.