Thaumatrope

A thaumatrope of a dog and birds

The layout of Laura Hayes and John Howard Wileman Exhibit of Optical Toys's site is a little boring, there's nothing really interesting about it, it's a plain white and black, with a center alignment, it's not very intriguing. The actual content of this site is quite thorough and well written, they have a lot of information on the actual toys, along with pictures, videos and how to make the actual toy (if possible).

My favorite toy from the site would have to be the the Thamuatrope.  It's a small disk that has two holes on either side and have string strung on them, two images are drawn on both sides, both made to complete each other in a full picture. To get the toy to work, you have to hold one string and turn the disk, then you hold the disks and gently pull, causing it to wind and unwind, the faster you can get it to spin, the better the full image appears.