Pac-Man 3D Zoetrope

In my 5th semester of college (Fall 2017) a team of 3 students including myself designed and built a working 3D Zoetrope for a Sculpture class. I personally designed the system as well as the placement and shape of each of the Pac-Man Characters. The result was a rotating turn table with a strobe light working as a shutter to create the illusion of live animation before the viewers eyes.

The main issue that arose during the project was an issue with the strobe light not being on for a brief enough amount of time. As a result the “exposure” was two long and the image blurred. This problem wasn’t realized until the night before the galleys opening. In a haste to solve the problem, a small calibrated DC motor with a spinning, slotted card board disk was installed in front of the now all-ways-on strobe light creating the desired shutter length. The one issue with this solution was that the shutter streaked across the turn table instead of illuminating the entire surface evenly. The effect was still quite effective.

This project was completed in 12 days for under $150.