A Simple Magic Trick that Uses Two Arrows to Point in Four Directions

I was very young when I first saw a magician do this trick, but I was too young to understand the trick. I think I was just too young to know what was odd about what was happening.. The trick uses a square card that has an arrow in one direction on one side and an arrow in a 90 degree direction on the other side. As the card is turned over one time you see the arrow pointing in the one direction. It appears for example that the arrow points to the right on one side and up on the other side, but suddenly as the card is flipped it now appears to point to the left on one side and down on the other side.

I have done this magic trick with middle school students and they seem to know what is odd right away. Basically how can a card with two arrows seem to be able to point in four directions. High school students are less forgiving and think it is a pretty poor trick in general. You can get away with it if you tell them first that you are going to do a trick that you would normally do with much younger students and you know that they are more mature (at least you hope they are). I never tried this with students in around the fourth or fifth grade, but think that age might be more appropriate.

In a science class wer are trying to get at their ability to make observations. The good part about this magic trick is that it is easy to make and easy to do, but does actually take a little practice to do smoothly. To prepare you need to have a card that is about 1 foot by 1 foot that is plain white or a light color. You then would put a broad arrow on each side of the card like the graphic shows. You can make your arrows a lot broader. They should be neat and a bright color like red.

The trick is actually how you hold the card and how you flip the card. If you hold the card with the right hand at the bottom right corner and the top left with the left hand then you can make a basic flip by bringing your left hand down while bringing your right hand up through a flip, but don't slide your hand. This is a straight flip. You can do this one time and then again and your hands should be back where they were to begin with when you started.

The other type of flip is a flip where the left bottom corner will be moved so that it goes into the top right position. Your hands actually do not move. This cause the arrows to point in different directions, but you now must go back to doing a straight flip to show the back side of the card which now also has an arrow pointing in a different direction.

You would not do this too many times or students will catch the different directions of the flip. If you do this trick for children that are too young they will simply accept the idea that the arrows point in four directions and this is not odd at all in their world. This might be related to concepts that we can understand only when we reach certain levels of maturity. The card that is used should also not be so thin that you see the arrow on the other side in any way. Students that try this at home with their brothers and sisters or parents, might try this with a piece of notebook paper which is really too thin. A good place to possibly get some card stock is from an office supply store. You can even have them cut it into an 8 1/2 inch square and you can keep the excess for notes.

I like this one because students can try it at home. You might encourage them to practice in a mirror before trying it on their parents. A smooth motion is required and you have to be able to change the direction of flip easily without hesitation.