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How to Create A Spirograph

Spirograph was a popular drawing game in the 1960s. British electrical engineer Denys Fisher invented it while working on bomb detonator designs for NATO. The game had plastic rings, gears, and bars with interlocking teeth that fit together, and when players used a pen to draw through the rings, they could create wheels, tunnels, stained-glass windows, flowers, snowflakes, and many other designs. Today's computer graphic design programs can create Spirograph designs, but using the original drawing game is a lot more fun.

Instructions

- 1
  Place the Spirograph baseboard on a flat surface. Lay a sheet of drawing paper on top of it, and pin each corner of the paper to the baseboard.
- 2
  Choose whether you want to use the plastic guide bars or a gear ring and pin your choice in place on the paper and baseboard.
- 3
  Place a gear inside the gear ring or guide bars with the plastic teeth interlocking.
- 4
  Put the tip of one of the four colored pens into a hole on the gear and move it around the guide bars or gear ring. Ellipses will form on your drawing paper.
- 5
  Change to a different color pen and use a different hole on the gear--or a different gear altogether--to change the design of the ellipses.

Kids Games