Andy Hoang from Beyond Blocks in Kingston upon Thames in the UK teaches programming and engineering using LEGO and often build models to try and help explain things.

He recently had a lesson to do in Kingston Museum for an exhibition about motion. The exhibition was inspired by the works of Eadward Muybridge, who was born in the town and was beset known for his works photographing movement. His most famous works focus on animal locomotion and he produced over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion.

To view these pictures like a moving image, you could use a Zootrope to spin the images around while you looked through a slit to see the images. Muybridge also invented a projection device, which was a forerunner of today’s cinema technology.

Andy was looking for something that would really capture the children’s imagination at my LEGO workshop and bring the works of Eadward Muybridge alive for them and so he was absolutely thrilled to find the instructions for a Zoetrope, complete with moving horse images for LEGO on the PV Productions site and for FREE no less!

Beyond Blocks didn’t have the base model that it was build from (LEGO 42082), but they had most of the parts and made do with some bits in Andy’s LEGO collection, but it came out fine. It took around 4 hours to build, most of that time was finding the parts in my LEGO collection but the principle was there, of a rotating device with slits to view from the side.

Everyone absolutely LOVED the model, which formed the centerpiece of the workshop and the children had great fun designing their own animations to go in the machine.

This model couldn’t have been more perfect for this exhibition. It came along at exactly the right time and it was shown in the most appropriate place in the world to pay homage to Eadward Muybridge, possibly it’s most famous user.

Thanks so much PV Productions for making this and for your generosity in sharing it.