This week’s selection is “The Maker Magician’s Handbook: A Beginner’s Guide to Magic + Making” by Mario Marchese.
There are plenty of applications for 3D printing, but one that I’d never considered is the world of magic. Of course, I don’t mean “real” magic, I mean the tricks amateur and career magicians use to make their audiences feel that the magic is real.
Magicians use sleight of hand and performance to distract the audience from what’s really going on behind the scenes. If done well, it really does look like something magical occurred.
Sometimes there are mechanisms required to implement the “behind the scenes” actions of a magic trick. Normally these are done with common items like rubber bands, paper clips, and so on.
Magicians will invent tricks using such tools (or not) and refine their performance to make the magic happen.
But hold on, what if these magical tools could be made with a 3D printer? What if we looked at the magic world through the eyes of a maker? What if a magician could devise a trick that required an unusual tool? Such tools likely couldn’t be purchased, unless someone else previously invented the magic trick.
A unique magic trick is gold in the world of magic, as it could be traded to other magicians in exchange for other tricks. Having the ability to make unique tools for new tricks could be quite valuable for a magician.
This book shows how all this is done, and involves 3D printing: tools are designed using Tinkercad, a free and simple-to-use online CAD system from Autodesk. With the instructions in this book, any aspiring magician could quickly learn Tinkercad and begin designing their own magical tools.
There’s not a lot on the actual 3D printing part, as they suggest you can take the Tinkercad original designs to publicly available 3D printers in libraries, which is probably a good approach for magicians that aren’t constantly 3D printing parts.
The book is written by Mario Marchese, who just happens to be a US-based magician who performs one-man magic theater. He explains:
“When I first dreamed of becoming a professional magician, a mentor told me that if I could master just seven routines of magic, I could make a lifetime career for myself. Seven.
That’s such a small number. You don’t need to know everything to be great. But over time I learned the real lesson: It’s never about the tricks … it’s always about you. Your story will be what makes you stand out. The more you express your excitement for your interests in life, the more everyone will be excited with you!”
If you or someone you know is into magic, then this book just might open up a whole new world of magical possibilities.
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Via Amazon
