Create complex cycloid drawings with Hypnograph, the ultimate drawing machine! Easy-to-use and fascinating to watch, the machine creates an infinite variety of drawings consisting of beautiful, repeating curves. Fully adjustable parts may be configured to create drawings using up to 10 interchangeable gears of increasing size. Recreate a drawing using a guided setup, or rearrange the gears to design something completely unique. The possibilities are endless!

Click for videos on how to make these drawings!

2 loops – 30 gear

3 loops – 40 gear

4 loops – 45 gear

5 loops – 36 gear

10 loops – 42 gear

15 loops – 44 gear

30 loops – 38 gear

Need more circles for your HypnoGraph? Click here for a printable template.

Hypnograph + Gear Ratios

STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) turns into STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art Math) with the Hypnograph. Unlike other drawing machines that have hard to understand ratios, the Hypnograph uses an easily understood set of gears. They are all based on factoring the turntable which has 60 teeth. 60 factors into 2 x 2 x 3 x 5. This lets you easily understand the greatest common factor in the set of gears. A 30 gear has a Greatest Common Factor of 30 with the 60 teeth on the turntable. This means that the 30 gear will produce a drawing with 2 curves (nodes). The instruction book provides a chart so you don’t have to do the math but there is also a good explanation of what’s going on with the gears. A couple teachers have told me that it was the best visual explanation of Greatest Common Factor that they had ever seen.