Turning Patterns: Concluding a Kaleidoscope Report

How a Kaleidoscope Works

1Have you ever looked into a tube and seen a burst of colors that changed every time you turned it? That tube was probably a kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope is a toy and a small work of art at the same time. In art class, our group learned how one works, and then we built our own.

2A kaleidoscope has three main parts. The first part is the tube, which you hold up to your eye. Inside the tube are long, narrow mirrors. Many kaleidoscopes have three mirrors placed together to make a triangle shape. At the far end of the tube is a small case filled with colorful pieces, such as beads, bits of glass or tiny shapes of plastic.

3When you look through the small hole at one end, light shines in through the other end and passes through the colorful pieces. The mirrors reflect the pieces over and over again. Because of this, a few beads look like many beads. The reflections fit together into a pattern that repeats around the center, a little like a star or a snowflake.

4The best part happens when you turn the tube. The pieces in the case tumble and slide into new places, so the mirrors show a brand-new pattern. Since the pieces can land in so many different ways, you may turn a kaleidoscope for a long time and never see the same picture twice.

5Our class made simple kaleidoscopes from paper towel tubes. Instead of glass mirrors, we folded a strip of shiny, mirror-like card into a long triangle and slid it inside the tube. We taped a clear cup lid filled with beads to one end and covered the other end with paper that had a small peephole. Mine was not as bright as a store-bought kaleidoscope, but the patterns changed each time I turned it.