The other day I read Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses to my art class. It is a sweet little book. Poor Pete is in a mood and feeling quite grumpy. He had the blues. His friend Toad gave him some cool blue, magic sunglasses to make his blues go away. “They help you see things in a whole new way.”- said Toad And guess what, they did! Short story shorter, Pete realizes that he can see things in a brand new way with or without the cool “magic” sunglasses. Although somewhat off topic, I decided this may be a good opportunity to introduce a physics lesson about 3D glasses and how they work. Why not? 3D glasses also help you see things in a brand new way.
I started out going over some basics:
-When you see a normal movie that is called 2D (two dimensional).
-A 3D film is when you watch a 3D film on a flat cinema screen, but you see it in full three dimension. Because the film and the glasses are tricking your eyes.
–Stereoscopic Vision– the single perception of a slightly different image from each eye.
The kids tried on the old school 3D glasses with red and blue lenses.
Like the scientists we are, we got to work asking questions and testing out what worked and what did not work.
We used a 3D Drawing Pad and we made a larger stereoscopic graph of our own using a special protractor.
Overall we introduced something new and discussed it. We experimented hands on to see what worked and what did not work. I believe this is the best way to wrap your brain around something and start to understand it.
How red and blue glasses and stereoscopic graphs work:
The colored lenses in the 3D glasses allow each eye to only see the opposite color on the stereoscopic graph. The brain fuses the two graphs together the focal point is pushed forward creating the illusion of depth.
Take this lesson a bit further:
- Find out what animals see in 3D.
- Talk more about polarization.
- Study laser cut holograms.
- Explore virtual reality…
Guess what. It is not magic. It is science.
