Tim’s Optical Illusion Playing Cards

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ Tim loves playing cards and he also loves optical illusions. So how about combining the two – a set of playing cards that have optical illusions on them! The first example has a different optical illusion in each card. They can…

The Useless Machine!

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ The Useless Machine, sometimes called the Leave me Alone Box, is a timeless classic, a device whose only function is to switch itself off! Tim also sometimes calls it the Energy Miser! It was invented in the 1950s by Marvin Minsky, co-founder of MIT. The…

The Mighty Dollar

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ You can be sure that Tim can find lots of unusual things to do with a dollar bill! A joke dollar with George Washington holding his head in his hands in despair – the date is 2008, when the financial crash…

The Dropping Top (4K)

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ This unusual and very beautiful dropping top is hand made from Sandarac wood and African Blackwood. A dropping top has an unusual method of being launched. The string (supplied) loops around the wooden cleat at the top, and is given an initial twist. You then…

Tim Goes Upcycling!

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Today, Tim has invited his old friend Gerard Darby into the studio. Gerard has brought some fun items from his collection to share with Tim! Tim has a favourite drinking glass which he uses every day. It has been made from a Coca-Cola bottle. Once…

‘Non Parity’ Dice…

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ A simple dice – or die if you prefer. Six sides, each containing one of the numbers from 1 to 6. And opposite sides must add up to 7. So the 6 is opposite the 1, the 5 opposite the 2…

Optical Toys From Rufus Butler Seder

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ Tim recently received a parcel in the post from Rufus Butler Seder, which contained some of Rufus’s latest optical toys and inventions. The first toy Tim demonstrates is a hand held battery operated fan, which has a row of LEDs along…

Tim’s Gadgets and Gizmos!

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Alas, poor Yorick… a skeleton toy with a pull string. Makes the bones jump about a bit! A stick pointer with a telescopic arm. Unscrew the hand at the end, and you discover a ball point pen. A chattering pull string attached to a key…

Bremen Town Musicians

From Grand Illusions. The "Town Musicians of Bremen" is a German fairy tale, published in Grimms’ Fairy Tales in 1819. It tells the story of four aging domestic animals, who after a lifetime of hard work are neglected and mistreated by their former masters. Eventually, they decide to run away, intending to become town musicians…

Tim’s ‘Pretty Pens’

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ Tim loves pens! And he certainly has a great many pens in his collection. First up, three very decorative pens which also light up. Good for cinema critics maybe? A pen that has an ergonomic function, useful if you have problems…

Deal Me In, Tim!

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ Tim takes the view that you can never have too many sets of playing cards in your life. And Tim, of course, has a fondness for unusual decks of cards! Sugar lumps in the shapes of diamonds, hearts and spades. What…

Right Away, Tim!

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Tim has a great many pens in his collection. But as well as writing, they all have other tricks up their sleeves! A ball point pen that is also a bubble wand – it contains a reservoir of soap solution, and also the bubble wand.…

Tim, The Big Roller!

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ More unusual dice from Tim’s never ending collection… A spherical die that has a clever internal weighting system; an electronic die and chocolate dice…! A die with regular numbers on each face, but there is also a little picture of a…

Don’t Write Tim Off Yet

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Aaaargh! Has Tim been replaced with an AI Bot? Is he now sitting on a tropical beach, sipping a pina colada, while clever software presents the toys? No – Tim is irreplaceable. No Bot could possibly compete! Welcome to Tim’s first video of 2024 ……

Tim Goes Tunnelling

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ An unusual toy from the Japanese toy company TOMY. Bought in France back in the 1970s. It is a bit like a tunnelling machine, with rotating wheels with cogs at the front. It will ‘tunnel’ its way though the inside of…

Tim Is Dealt A Big Hand

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Tim has so many decks of unusual playing cards in his toy collection that he has a couple of cases that just contain playing cards. First of all, an enormous deck. Good for giants! Just the thing for the ‘big game!’ By contrast, Tim then…

Twas The Night Before Christmas

From Grand Illusions. Today is the 200th anniversary of what has become a much loved Christmas poem… ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (originally published in December 1823) By Clement Clarke Moore ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by…

Loaded Dice?

From Grand Illusions. Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1 _______________________________________________________________________ While we all know that there are such things as loaded dice, we tend to assume that normal dice are just that – normal – and that each face has a 1 in 6 chance of landing face up. However we…

If All The World Were Paper…

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Amoretti biscuits are sometimes served with a coffee, especially in Italian restaurants. But after you have eaten the biscuit, you can have fun with the paper wrapper. As well as cellulose fibres, many types of paper include fillers such as chalk or china clay. This…

The Birth Of The Movies

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Tim demonstrates a modern flip book, and then shows a neat little ‘box set’ of four flip books, each of which shows a scene from a very early film, made in the first years of cinema. The set was produced by the British Council around…

Tim Gets Very Animated!

From Grand Illusions. Visit Tim’s Toy Shop, at https://www.grand-illusions.com/ _______________________________________________________________________ Tim demonstrates a wonderful array of pre-cinema animation techniques. Tim starts by showing how you can use two small pieces of paper to demonstrate the principle of animating a simple stick man, using just two images. Next, a thaumatrope, an idea which dates originally from…