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Prepare to be deceived
I enjoyed my genius hour, and I am glad that my schedule for my project worked out. I'm finished with my genius hour power point presentation, however, I am still working on my ability to present what I learned and a few card tricks to present so I can finish within the 5-7 minute presentation time.
Now that the end of Genius Hour is here, I can reflect on how I have done in the past weeks. I must admit, I didn't think that I would actually get myself to learn these card trick, but it became enjoyable in the end. I learned more than I planned to, such as a few extra sleight-of-hand moves and other maneuvering techniques with the deck to help me accomplish a card trick in different ways. I also learned the best technique (in the first few weeks) of doing the bridge shuffle. However, these are not the most important things I learned. This project overall helped me become a better presenter, because I showed these card tricks to my parents and other students. Because I persistently presented these card tricks, I believe I have become a better public speaker. I speak more fluently in my presentations and I am more relaxed. This project was a success, as I learned everything that I wanted to in the time that I had planned. Thank you for reading my genius hour project blog posts, and peace out!
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I figured out how to do my card trick on accident. I was a bit bored and I was having trouble with creating my card trick, and I had a few cards in my knuckle. I slipped my hand on accident across the top of the pile when all cards but one fell out. But the weird thing was that I recognized that card -- it was the card that I had on the bottom earlier. I immediately knew that I would include this into my card trick. This week, I present you: Firmly Grasp it.
Step 1 - You're going to show someone a card from the top of the deck. However, it can not be the one from the top. You need to take two cards and make it look like one. Step 2 - Take "their card", or the decoy card, and let them choose where to put it. Step 3 - Do the Klondike shuffle (refer to the blog post from a few weeks ago). Step 4 - You may continue to shuffle if you want, but you must have the bottom card not be their card. Their card must stay second to last. Step 5 - Put your palm on top of the deck, covering the bottom half of it. Flip the deck over, and ask if it is their card. Step 6 - Here's the tricky part. Flip the deck back over, and tell the audience that you are going to put that bottom card on the table. Because their card is actually second to last, you must slide the bottom card back with the middle finger of the hand that is covering the card. When you do this, you can easily slip out the second to last card from the bottom and place it on the table. Step 7 - Do this two more times, but without the sleight of hand. Flip over, ask, flip back over, place bottom card down. Step 8 - Now say that you aren't doing too well with this, so we're going to try a different technique. Tell the person to make a fist. Stick the small pile of cards between one of the fingers, close to the knuckles. Tell it to grasp it firmly, or it won't work. Then, slap the cards downward, and voila. Their card is in their own hand. This trick is guaranteed to amaze the audience. I showed it on my parents and they said this one was one of their favorite tricks. I like this one myself because I get to use all of the different shuffling techniques I learned from previous weeks and incorporate it into one trick. I've really enjoyed learning all of the different card tricks and sleight of hand methods. I'll get a full week to rehearse all of my tricks, and finish my presentation. I'll see you next week! Today is Wednesday, and I have no ideas of how to make a card trick. Most of the ones I've tried to make need impossible sleight of hand, or just don't work. It's much harder than I planned for it to be. Thank god I gave myself two weeks to do it.
You may be wondering why it is difficult to make a card trick. Well, my largest problem is showing the user the card after I filter it to the top or the bottom of the deck. I can get the card into those positions in many different ways that I learned from my previous tricks, but I want to create something original, while amazing the audience. Hopefully I'll come up with a good idea later this week. In my presentation, I want to include at least some sleight of hand to show my progress. However, I haven't been using my time just messing with the deck. I'm continuing to practice my presentation order of my tricks. My final task after creating this card trick will be to make the presentation, so I can be completely ready for class. My goal by this Monday will be to think up of my original card trick, and to begin practicing it. Hopefully, it doesn't come out too long or complicated, because that can ruin the effect of the card trick. This card trick is a bit too complicated to explain, due to the specificity of the certain shuffles needed for this card trick. However, this week, I began to practice my older card tricks because of how close the project is to being finished. I think my favorite card trick out of all of these is the 27 Card trick, because it is purely mathematics built into a card trick, and because it really gets a great reaction out of the audience.
My largest problem with these card tricks is remembering the steps. Because I already know quite a lot of card tricks, I have to remember which steps, maths, and other sleight of hand moves that are associated with each card trick. While working to memorize all of these card tricks, I figured I also might start practice presenting. I wrote down a few notes in my card-trick notebook about what I'll say during certain card tricks, as well as the order in which I will present. I've begun working on the actual Genius Hour presentation as well, so I can practice the full presentation to be prepared in class. Hopefully, next week I can start developing my own card trick from scratch. I think it's time to take a break from cards in sizes in the 20s. This trick is a tad bit more specialized than others, as you need to find your Kings, Queens, and Jacks from your decks, but they must be from the Clubs, Hearts, and Diamonds suits.
PREREQUISITE - Lay out the cards into three piles, all with the same suit, like so: Audience __ __ __ | C | H | D | -- -- -- You (The order of the three decks does not matter, but the cards in each deck must have the same suit.) Step 1 - Ask the individual to take any pile, shuffle it in any way they want to, and set it face down where it was. Step 2 - Ask the individual to do the same with the other two piles as well. After they have done this, you should have 3 piles face down. Step 3 - Ask the individual to take any deck and put it on top of any other deck to make one large pile, face down. Step 4 - Now, ask the individual how many times they would like for you to cut the deck. Do as many as they wish. Step 5 - To make them sure it's shuffled even further, deal two piles from right to left, and ask which pile should go on which. Do as they say. You should have 5 cards in the pile on the right, and 4 on the left. It does not matter which deck goes on which, as it never truly randomizes the cards. If you do this all face up, just to see how the trick works, you will see that because there is an even number of cards of different suits, and because they are all still together within the deck, they don't actually randomize the cards within the deck, it only moves the order (think of this as a chain). Step 6 - Now that you have one deck in your hands, you will begin to spell out the word C-L-U-B, and each time you say a letter, the top card goes on the bottom, but when you hit the last letter, you place that card down. Step 7 - Do the same, but spell H-E-A-R-T, and when you get to the T, place the card to the right of the one you placed down earlier. Step 8 - Do the same as before, but spell D-I-A-M-O-N-D. Step 9 - You should have three cards set down, all in their own place to form a pile. Now, instead of placing the card from left to right, you will go from right to left, beginning once again from C-L-U-B, then HEART, then DIAMOND. Step 10 - For the purpose of the audience to save time, simply deal the cards from right to left, starting from the top of the deck, to have three piles. And voila, the suits are together once again. This trick is also a great trick to give the illusion of control to an audience member. All of these steps are mostly done with their control, such as the "shuffling" and choosing which pile goes on which. However, if you do this trick face up, you will find that the order actually never changes, because there are 3 piles of 3 cards, which all have their own visual category. Cutting the deck doesn't separate them from each other, as it only changes the order. Think of a chain. If we paint the top chain link pink, and then we turn the chain so that it's in the bottom, the chains beside, or cards beside, never move away from that chain link, but only the entire order of which link is last and which link is first is changed. The usage of CLUB and HEART and DIAMOND is actually an amazingly cool coincidence that can be used with the trick. You COULD use spades instead of hearts, since both have the same amount of letters. I'll see you next week! As you may notice, a lot of these tricks have names that are in the 20s. I find it a bit funny as well. But, I've returned from Spring break to show you another card trick. PREREQUISITE - Know the 26th card. You can do this by "counting" the cards to make sure there are no missing cards, but what you will really do is count cards, and remembering which card was the 26th card. Step 1 - Say to the individual that you are going to cut the deck at a random place of your choosing. Find the 26th card that you memorized, and cut it there so you have two even decks of 26 cards. Step 2 - Tell the audience they may cut a random amount of cards from the left pile and place it wherever they want. Anywhere. Step 3 - Now, from the right pile, you will have to shuffle that deck. Then, show them the bottom card of that deck to memorize. Now, the catch is that you have to keep that card on the bottom. You may come up with any method you can possibly think of to keep it on the bottom, but it has to stay there. Be creative! (I'm still coming up with my own methods on my own as well.) Step 4 - Now that you have "shuffled" the deck, place it on top of the deck on the left. Step 5 - Here, you must do the magical shuffle called the "Klondike" shuffle. In this shuffle, you put your pinky, middle, and ring fingers on the back of the deck, and your thumb on the top of the deck. Press firmly on the deck and move your hand to the left, with your right hand on the top and bottom of the deck, so that the top and the bottom cards are now in your left hand. Continue to do this until all of the cards from your right hand are on your left. **See video on the bottom of this blog post. Step 6 - Now, retrieve the deck of cards that the audience member cut earlier, and tell them to count the amount of cards in that deck. Step 7 - Begin counting off cards from the top of the deck, and when you get to their number, place that card face up, and voila, their card is there! Even though this trick uses sleight of hand, it uses the power of mathematics to be able to reproduce a card memorized by the audience. This is less on the mathematical side as it is just memorization of the position of a few cards. It's more of how the decks are maneuvered to achieve the final result. The only sleight of hand that I would use is at the very start to know the bottom card. The rest can be done very well, but you must have a great memory, I really struggle with this trick because I deal the piles a bit too fast, and I forget the card in a few seconds. I would say this trick is the hardest one I have chosen so far, due to the amount of steps that you have to take. I'll see you next week. This card trick is very similar to the card trick I did last week, but here is the catch; it is much more complicated, in regards to math. I am sure you will love the explanation I give for this trick.
PREREQUISITE - Make a deck of 27 cards. You can even let the audience select the cards. Step 1 - Let the person select their card in any way they want. Also, let them pick any number they want out of 27. They can even hold the deck face up in their own hands. They don't even have to take it out of the deck. Step 2 - Here is where it gets really complicated really fast. Tell them to shuffle the deck while you calculate. Let me break this down: Okay, so they have selected a number from 1 to 27. First of all, the number 27 in general is very significant; it is a cubed number (3 cubed). So, let's say the individual chooses a card and also chooses the number 18. Your goal is now set to make their chosen card to be the 18th in the deck, which means you need to have 17 cards above it. To do this, you have to express the number 17 in base 3 notation, which means you write it as a 3 digit number. To do this, you will write the digits in backwards order: 1s digit first, 3s digit second, and 9s digit last. In this base 3 notation, 17 becomes 221, because: 17 = (2×3)^0 + (2×3)^1 + (1×3)^2 With the understanding that 2 = bottom, 1 = middle, and 0 = top, the number 17 (in our notation, 221) becomes “bottom-bottom-middle.” This order applies to which position you put the pile with their deck in, as you ask the individual which pile their card landed in, and you merge the deck together. If you did not understand the whole equation from above (happened to me as well), let me put this a bit more logically. 27 cards are dealt - 3 times. If person chooses say number 18, then :- 1st time round count in 3's. 1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9; 10, 11, 12; 13, 14, 15; 16, 17, 18; As seen the 18 is 3rd of the sequence, therefore is put in 3rd i.e. the bottom. 2nd time round count in groups of "3's." 1, 2, 3; counts as '1'. 4, 5, 6; counts as '2' and 7, 8, 9; counts as '3'. Continuing again, 10, 11, 12; counts as '1'. 13, 14, 15; counts as '2', and finally, 16, 17, 18; counts as '3'. Therefore, this time through, and the pile chosen goes into 2nd i.e. middle pile. 3rd time round is the quickest to figure out: if the number is 1 to 9, it is the first of the sequence, so it goes on top. 10 to 18 is second of the sequence, so it goes in the middle, and 19 to 27 is third of the sequence, so it ultimately goes on the bottom. So, in our case, we would put ours in the middle, as it falls into the second category. And we get the same result: The order the piles must go in each time through would be "bottom-bottom-middle." Using above rules, their card will end up at whatever number position is chosen. Step 3 - Begin to make 3 piles, going from left to right. Do this face up. Tell the individual to pay attention to which pile their card lands into. Step 4 - Once you have spread out the cards among the three decks, ask them which pile their card landed in. Step 5 - Now, remembering our procedure from step 2, the first time you merge the deck together, you would put it on the bottom first, bottom again the second time through, and middle the last time. Step 6 - Finally, tell the individual that their card has landed in their number's location in the deck. Begin to lay the amount of cards they had chosen as a number, with their number being the card. This is by far the most complex card trick I have ever done. There are legitimate equations to this trick, and these kinds of math used in simple card tricks really interests and excites me. I'll see you next week. Mathematics is the study of perfection.
This card trick is so simple and flawlessly constructed that it's almost hilarious. Let me explain: PREREQUISITE - Make a deck of 21 cards. You can even let the audience select the cards. Step 1 - Let the person select their card in any way they want. They can even hold the deck face up in their own hands. They don't even have to take it out of the deck. Step 2 - Begin to make 3 piles, going from left to right. Do this face up. Tell the individual to pay attention to which pile their card lands into. Step 3 - Once you have spread out the cards among the three decks, ask them which pile their card landed in. Step 4 - The pile with their card must go between the other two decks when you merge them all together. Step 5 - Repeat steps 3 & 4, two times. The reason that you do this three times (magical number) is because the card will begin to shift to the middle of the entire deck. Here is why: You have 3 piles. Each pile has 7 cards. There is always a distinct middle card to the deck, because the size is an odd number. By putting the card in the middle each time, you (after three times) will force the card to be in the middle of the deck. The center of the entire deck is 11. Step 6 - Now, tell the individual that you will guess or even deduce what their card is by looking at their face whenever you put the card down. Anything to make the trick amazing and cool :) Step 7 - Begin putting the cards down in a similar fashion before (but take your time), and have the cards face up. The 11th card will always be theirs. This trick is purely mathematical. I really love this trick because of how simple it was made. You legitimately do one action three times and you already know which one their card is. These kinds of things in general really make me think about what else I can apply this kind of logic to. I love math in general, and these tricks show me that math is constant and is everywhere. I'll see you next week. I'm really happy I chose this genius hour project. Over the weekend, I had my first 'mini performance' where I presented these tricks to my parents and they really enjoyed it. It's a nice feeling you get when your audience is amazed. Here's this week's trick:
PREREQUISITE - Know the bottom card. You can use any method you know to figure out what the bottom card is. Step 1 - Spread the deck and ask the individual to take a card. Step 2 - Ask the individual how many piles they would like the deck to be made into. Know which pile the bottom card is in. Remember that these piles are face down. Step 3 - Ask the individual to place their card on any pile. Now, one of two things can happen. They will either place their card on the deck with that card you know at the bottom of it, or they won't. Audience __ __ __ __ | * | | | | -- -- -- -- You * = pile with the bottom card you know Step 4a - If they place the card on the deck with the *, then you need to do this: Audience __ __ __ __ | T | | | | (You essentially cut the deck of all the cards and place it forward) -- -- -- -- ^ ^ ^ ^ __ __ __ __ | * | | | | -- -- -- -- You When you do this, you then put the decks closer to you on top of the decks farthest to you. You will be left with 4 piles. Step 4b - If they put the card on top of another deck, you need to put the deck of cards that has the bottom card that you know on top of the deck with their card in it. The reason that you do this is so that you know their card is right next to (or before) your card. Step 5 - Put the decks together so that their card is as close to the bottom (Just put all other decks on top of theirs) Step 6 - Now, flip the deck face up, and literally deal random piles of random number. Step 7 - WHEN YOU SEE YOUR CARD, place it down to finish the current random pile you are making, and make their card the bottom of the next randomly sized deck. Remember the name of the card. e.g. 'King of Hearts' or 'Three of Clubs'. Step 8 - Deal any amount of cards you want on top of that card. Any. Step 9 - Make a new pile, but in this one, spell out their card in your head with each individual card. I recommend just using the first two words like 'King of' or 'Five of'. Step 10 - Make a new pile, and in this one spell out the last word with each individual card. Now you need to remember the positions of these decks. They are vital to the trick. Step 11 - After spelling out the card in random piles, make a new pile, and continue to deal random piles so they expect nothing. Step 12 - Combine random piles, but specifically, do not touch the deck with their card in it. When combining the piles, merge the two decks that you had spelled out their card in. Do not merge it with any other deck after doing this. Step 13 - Then, put the pile with their card on top of the pile that you spelled out your card in. Put everything else on top of that deck. Step 14 - This is where the magic happens! Flip the big deck of cards over, spell out their card, and then reveal their card to them. This is less on the mathematical side as it is just memorization of the position of a few cards. It's more of how the decks are maneuvered to achieve the final result. The only sleight of hand that I would use is at the very start to know the bottom card. The rest can be done very well, but you must have a great memory, I really struggle with this trick because I deal the piles a bit too fast, and I forget the card in a few seconds. I would say this trick is the hardest one I have chosen so far, due to the amount of steps that you have to take. I'll see you next week. In honor of the week of the magic number, 3, I decided to do a card trick with a cool twist you don't see very often: You choose 3 cards. This card trick is possible because of the number of cards there there is in the deck. I will explain everything along the way.
Step 1 - You can shuffle etc. But allow the individual to select any 3 cards from the deck, they can even look for it face up. Step 2 - Tell them to put their 3 cards aside, and you take the deck of cards. You may let them even shuffle the deck. Then comes the most important part: You must make 4 piles of a certain amount of cards. Here is the numbers (this is from the perspective of the presenter): Your audience __ __ __ __ | 9 | 15 | 15 | 10 | -- -- -- -- You Step 3 - Let them put any card on the deck of 10 cards. Then, from the deck to your left, allow them to cut it at any spot and place it on top of the deck of now 11 cards, with theirs included. THIS GIVES THE ILLUSION THAT THE DECK IS BEING RANDOMIZED. IT REALLY IS NOT. I WILL EXPLAIN FURTHER IN STEP 5. Step 4 - Now let them place their next card on the deck they just cut (originally 15 cards), and cut from the deck to the left of that, and place on top of the deck with their card on top. This means that one deck is face down, and the other is face up. Step 5 - Finally, put their last card on top of the last deck you cut from, and put the rest of the 9 cards on top of it. You will then have 3 piles of random sizes. Put the deck on the far left on top of the middle, and then this large pile on top of the one on the far right. The reason why this is an illusion is because the cutting of the cards does not change anything in the deck. Let's say you cut deck A. The smaller deck you cut from deck A will be called deck B. You place deck B on deck C, then you place deck A on top of that. So instead of the order being v is the top of deck C A B ^ is the bottom of deck in the deck, it is now C B A. Their card was put on top of deck C, and as you can see, the position never changed. So, their cards are now the 10th, 26th, and the 42nd. You will see why this is important in the next few steps. Step 6 - So, you have one big pile of cards, face down. Begin showing one card face up in one pile, and another card face down in a pile. Go back and forth, but start with the card face up. You will do this basically each time, except for the 3rd time through, where you start face down. Lets break this down. - The first time through, every even number will be in the face down pile, and odd number will be in the face up pile. So: 2,4,6,8,10, ... and then 26 and 42. - The second time through, it will be every factor of 4 of 52 (or factor of 2 of 26), but because you begin face up, all cards landing in the face down pile will begin from 52, and then subtract each time by 4. But, because your attention is focused on the face down pile, the cards will be: 50, 46, 42, 38, ... and then 26 and 10. - The third time through you start face down because your pile has 13 cards (52/4). If you started face up, their cards will show up in the face up pile because of the position of the cards. So, after you do this, you will be left with 7 cards in your face down pile. The cards in this pile will be: 50, 42, 34, 26, 18, 10, and 2. - The final time through, you start face up (because you want your final pile to have 3 cards. The position is determined just by repeatedly multiplying the distance between the cards by 2. So, the 4th time, the final 3 cards in the deck's original positions in the deck were 10, 26, and 42 (because they are 16 away from each other). The steps before just set up the position in a very clever way. Step 7 - Show them the 'Final 3' cards. That's how it's done! This trick is extremely well made, but is fairly simple if you look at it in the math side. It's just factors of 16, but starting from the 10th card. I'll see you next week! |
Marceli Lewtak's ProjectWelcome to the card mathematics blog page. Here you will find my progress in learning tricks, learning how they work, and perfecting the sleight of hand required in these tricks. |