Draughts Trick
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Draughts Trick
Steve & Annabel
Download film (right-click)Adult , Demonstration , Physics
A brilliant tabletop physics trick with a satisfyingly clever solution.
Director's Notes:
Making a film with a team of only two people isn’t easy. You’ve got one person talking, and the other has to operate the camera, make sure the sound is OK, work out what to point the camera at, think about what’s next, and listen to what the first person is saying to check it makes sense. Busy!
And then… the props never behave. Steve and Annabel managed to make this trick work the first time they tried it, but of course they weren’t filming then. When they were filming, it took take… after take… after take…
SciCast Notes:
There are dozens of little tabletop physics tricks, and this one is probably my favourite. It’s ridiculously hard to get consistently good at it — just when you think you’ve got the knack, the draught goes careering off behind the sofa.
What I like about the film is that the shot of the draughts doing their thing is big, clear, and steady. You can see exactly what’s going on, which makes it easier to do it yourself.
One word of advice: it’s surprisingly hard to track down a cheap draughts set, and some of the ones you’ll find have nasty hollow plastic pieces that don’t work for this. This wooden set was very cheap, however, and it came from the board games section of one of those giant toy superstores.
— Jonathan