Sensational - the try 'em at home guide to illusions

Here is a try it at home Blue Peter type guide to some easy to do illusions with your senses and other body bits. It uses things you can find around your home or school, and we guarantee no need for any sticky-backed plastic.

Making sense of your senses

We have five senses: hearing, smell, taste, touch and vision. It's your senses' job to let you know what's happening in the environment around you. We can distinguish millions of shades of colours, ten thousand different smells, we can feel a feather touch our skin or a faint rustle of a leaf. Our senses are fantastic. Having to process all that information in real time means that your brain is taking some short cuts in the calculations though. It's making assumptions all along, and when those assumptions don't apply then illusions happen!