I.B. Geocaching Supplies Blog - A Photo Prop for Pi Day
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A Photo Prop for Pi Day

by Islander1988


Posted on 2016-03-13 at 6:22 PM


Geocachers love cool dates, like 7-7-7 and 11-12-13. The mathematical symbol Pi has an infinite number of decimal places but is often rounded to 3.14, and each year Pi Day is celebrated on March 14 (3-14). In 2015 we had Ultimate Pi Day because the first 9 decimal places we able to be represented in the date/time 3.14.15 9:26:53. However, as someone pointed out, if you round off the value of Pi to 4 decimal places you get the date 3.14.16, which is perfect for this year!

On Monday I'll be hosting a Pi Day geocaching event (GC6B314 - like the last 3 digits?). I plan to reuse a photo prop I made for my Pi event last year, and I thought I would make a PDF available for people who may be hosting an event and would like to make their own.

[Picture of the Pi Day photo prop]


Geocachers who were around in the 80s probably remember the TV show Magnum, P.I. starring Tom Selleck. The idea for this Pi Day version came from a picture I saw on the internet, so I can not take credit for the idea.

As with the Signal photo prop I made for my Leap Day event, I knew the original picture would not print out well if blown up to the size I needed, so I used it as a basis and recreated it with vectors so I could make it as large or small as I wanted. Fortunately I was able to get pre-made vectors of palm trees and grass, and the Pi symbol in the Garamond font was shaped like I needed, so there was not much I needed to draw myself. I took my pieces and arranged them to recreate the internet image.

[Picture of the Pi Day photo prop] The recreation in process.

I scaled the image to the size I wanted (in this case three pages across and two high) and printed out the pieces. The PDF available for download below will make one the same size as mine.

Instructions

I do not have pictures of the assembly steps, so you can refer to the pictures of the steps to make my Leap Day photo prop if anything is unclear.

  1. Print out the 6-page PDF.
  2. There is some image overlap on each splice to make it easier to line up the pictures. Choose which sheet of each overlap will be on top and trim off its white border. The under sheet doesn't need to be trimmed since it will be covered
  3. Cut out the white area in the centre for the person's face to show through.
  4. Line up the sheets and tape them together. Apply the tape to the back as much as possible so it isn't visible, but where you do need to put tape on the front, use transparent tape so it blends in.
  5. Create a frame to mount the picture on. You could make a wooden frame, but I use the aluminum frame from an old window screen. Wrap it with paper so you have something to attach your assembled printouts to; you could use the back of wrapping paper, wallpaper, or blank newsprint, whatever you have that's large enough.
  6. Lay your assembled collage on your covered frame, roughly mark the cut out face areas, and then cut those areas out of your frame's cover. Give yourself some buffer; that way the positioning of your printouts doesn't have to be exact.
  7. Tape your assembled picture to the frame, and you're done!

[Picture of the Pi Day photo prop]

The PDF to print and make your own photo prop poster is available for free; just click here to download it.

Have a great Pi Day everyone! [Share on Facebook] [Share on Pinterest]

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